Nature Restoration Law
Farm Talks started
The EU Nature Restoration Law has been in force since 18 August 2024. Many of the more than 23,000 supporters of the petition we initiated for Austria's approval of the Nature Restoration Law have expressed their creative and innovative views on its implementation.
With the implementation dialogue that emerged from the petition, we want to offer an opportunity for everyone to actively participate in ideas and possible solutions for repairing our ecosystems. We also want to reach those people who are critical of this law or who have not yet formed a final opinion on it. This dialogue is intended to provide them with the best possible answers to unanswered questions and give them practical examples of what improvement measures could look like in their specific situation.
This implementation dialogue takes place independently of the official preparation of the recovery plans. However, the results will be communicated to the relevant authorities and incorporated into the recovery plans at their discretion.
As a first step, we offered a two-hour online information evening on 17 July 2024, at which we presented the architecture and content of the law. Over 900 people followed the info event live. The recording of the event is available on the website www.renaturierungsgesetz.at (German).
In the coming weeks, my team and I will be visiting five selected farmers to discuss what the Nature Restauration Law could mean for them in concrete terms. We will talk about concerns, solutions and ideas. At the end of October, we will report on the results of these visits together with all five farms in an online stream. If you would like to be kept informed, simply register for the ‘Implementation dialogue’.
More information in German at www.renaturierungsgesetz.at
" Current projects
Who will be the Biodiversity Ambassador 2024?
Farming for Nature
In the last few months, numerous farmers from all over Austria have been nominated to us for the election of biodiversity ambassadors for 2024. We held detailed discussions with all candidates to get to know them and their farms better. All of these farmers do great things on their farms and beyond to preserve and restore biodiversity. They plant hedges, create habitats for reptiles, allow wild growth on their land or breed endangered breeds of livestock and thus preserve their gene pool.
In the next few weeks, the “Farming for Nature” expert jury will select 5 farmers as biodiversity ambassadors for 2024. We will accompany the ambassadors intensively for a year and share their stories and background information about why they are committed to diversity with the public.
Liven up alpine pastures
With new ways to more life on the alpine pastures
Alpine pastures are of central importance for the nature and geopark - as a food source for ruminants in the region, as a traditional cultural landscape, as destinations for hikers and as refuges for many special animal and plant species.
Suske Consulting works towards the goal of ensuring that the alpine pastures in the nature and geopark are preserved and continue to be managed. To this end, the nature conservation and alpine economic condition of the alpine pastures in the nature and geopark was surveyed, three “model alpine pastures” were established, the alpine farmers were networked with each other with numerous activities, and alpine visitors and people in the region were made aware of the ecological and social value of the alpine pastures.
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We have a plan
Management plan for the South Styria Nature Park
Together with the South Styria Nature Park, we have drawn up a management plan for 2022 and 2023. The management plan serves as a guide for the nature park's work over the next five years. The goals and their achievement are pursued that are considered particularly important by those working on this plan and by people from the nature park region who have taken part in numerous participation events.
Among other things, vineyards in the nature park should be transformed into diverse landscape sections through hedges, greenery and shallow water biotopes, which will be even better integrated into the small-scale cultural landscape of the nature park. In order to retain water in the nature park and thus counteract the weather-related challenges of climate change, wet meadows should be preserved and recreated through rewetting. In the middle of the idyllic cultural landscape, unnecessary use of space for luxury accommodation should be prevented.
You can find further goals that the South Styria Nature Park will focus on in its work over the next few years, as well as useful information about the nature park region, in the short version of the management plan .
You can find further information about the South Styria Nature Park here .
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