REIN-Forest

Biodiversity conservation of the native forest in the border region and fostering their ability against the impacts of climate change

INTERREG V-A Austria-Hungary Programme 2014- 2020

576.000 EUR which the share of the Vas County Government Office 161.000 EUR

01.10.2020 - 31.12.2022

Contact person(s): Anita Bálint - balint.anita@vasmegye.hu

Program website:

Project summary:

The focus of this project is on sustaining the stability and biodiversity of native forest cover in the Austrian-Hungarian border region, rendered vulnerable by climate change.

As in many regions of the world, climate change in the Austrian-Hungarian border region is accelerating due to human activities. The impacts of this extreme climate process are confirmed by a large amount of data.

Protection measures are needed in border areas to counterbalance the negative impacts and to maintain the stability of forest cover as well as to preserve biodiversity.

The technical work of the project partners started with a scaling down the SUSTREE European scale models to the regional level, carrying out a vulnerability analysis of the forests finded in the project area (Vas County and the sub-areas of the programme area in Lower Austria). This served as a basis for the development of a bilateral strategy for tranferring forest reproductive material. The strategy was shared with professional organisations, public and private forest managers, and local authorities, and sent to online professional forums for further promotion.

As a protective measure, the project partners searched for suitable sites for the planting of pre-sown and locally sourced sessile oak and beech seedlings at 6 field sites back in the spring of 2021. An open call was published for forest managers. The applications received were ranked according to a set of commonly defined criterias and the technical project partners signed the use contracts with the owners of the selected sites.

A joint management monitoring plan was drawn up for the next 15 years to assess the effectiveness of the measures.

It is important that the project's mission is disseminated to the wider public. Thus, technical activities were completed by the implementation of targeted activities to raise awareness towards the ecological diversity and the values of the forests:

VVÖH and BFW partners organized a series of programmes for schoolchildren (2 - 2 stations with an average of 45 schoolchildren),
roadshows for the general public (4 - 4 stations with an average of 40 participants),
series of workshops for professionals (forestry and nature conservation professionals, educators) (4 - 4 stations with an average of 30 participants),
two-day study tour organised by SOE-ERTI,
an activity booklet for young children produced by VVÖH, and
production of teaching materials and educational films for pupils and teachers in upper primary and secondary schools: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bObwMUCAyA&t=50s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGUpMoTJ4mE&t=265s.

All these results were presented by the project partners at a successful closing conference organised by VVÖH and held in the central building of Szombathely Forestry Ltd. on 22 November 2022.

Project partnership:

National Agricultural Research and Innovation Centre - HU
Federal Research and Training Centre for Forests, Natural Hazards and Landscape - AT
Vas County Government Office - HU (lead partner)

Strategic project partners: