Protected goods
Wilderness and biodiversity
Three smaller projects were developed from the extensive "Wilderness and Biodiversity" funding projects to date:
"WIBI VI - Environmental Monitoring" with a term from July 2023 to December 2024, which co-finances the management of environmental parameters, such as environmental monitoring at Zöbelboden.
"WIBI VI - Species Monitoring" with a term from August 2023 to December 2024, with the topics lynx, capercaillie, golden eagle, FFH butterflies, burnt area, deadwood beetle, stone crayfish, FFH amphibians and, to a lesser extent, public relations work and data entry into the National Park's own BioOffice database.
"WIBI VI - Management Monitoring", with the same duration as "WIBI VI - Species Monitoring", primarily co-finances the areas of forest management and the evaluation of the natural area inventory.
Since 2022, funding projects have been processed via a new digital platform (DFP). However, the fact that the platform did not function smoothly until the end of 2024 resulted in a situation where funding projects were applied for but not yet approved by the end of the project term.
KalkMon - Biodiversity Fund
(2023–2025)
In this project, the extensive species monitoring in the Kalkalpen National Park is being extended to stepping stone areas and linked to the monitoring systems of neighboring protected areas – Dürrenstein-Lassingtal Wilderness Area and Gesäuse National Park .
In spring 2024, work began on the KalkMon funding project with two workshops together with the Gesäuse National Park and the Dürrenstein-Lassingtal Wilderness Area. Four work contracts were concluded for the following survey projects, all of which promise interesting results. In addition, the monitoring of lynx, capercaillie, Ural owl, golden eagle, FFH butterflies, deadwood beetles, stone crayfish, rock ptarmigan, and amphibians from the WIBI VI species monitoring program was transferred to this funding project.
KalkMon was submitted as a funding project to the Biodiversity Fund in 2023 and approved in November 2023. The concept envisaged joint Kalkalpen National Park between three federal states (Upper Austria, Styria, and Lower Austria) in three protected areas (Dürrenstein-Lassingtal Wilderness Area, Gesäuse National Park, and Kalkalpen National Park) under the leadership of Kalkalpen National Park , from which all three institutions would benefit both individually and collectively in the future.
The aim was to establish the basis for joint monitoring on three contractually agreed stepping stones between the three protected areas, to identify protected resources that had not yet been Kalkalpen National Park taken into account in the work of Kalkalpen National Park , and thus to lay the foundation for future monitoring of these resources, as well as to maintain the monitoring of protected resources already integrated into the work.
During the project period from August 11, 2023, to October 31, 2025, the four survey packages designed for wasps, FFH mosses, dragonflies, and grasshoppers, as well as fungi, were successfully implemented with contractors, and the nine monitoring projects also delivered valuable results.
The four workshops between the three protected areas were so efficient and successful that, shortly before the end of the project period, capacity became available, resulting in an amendment request. This requested a one-month extension of the project period until November 30, 2025, and a change in content to include an additional investment in data loggers without changing the project budget. This would have laid the foundation for microclimate data on selected elevation transects in a pilot project. The amendment request for the investment in data loggers was not approved due to its late submission, but a later submission of the final report – by November 30, 2025 – was granted.
