Students:Group Five: Filip, Lucie H, Karolina, Ivona: Difference between revisions

Gesäuse National Park is located in central Austria in the north of Styria province. It’s the youngest one out of the six Austrian national parks (founded in 2002) and with its area of 11,054 ha is the third largest. Half of the area is covered by forests.  It‘s situated in the Ennstal Alps, which is a mountain range of limestone and dolomit origin. It’s been very popular among climbers for over 100 years. The character of the valley is formed by the river Enns that cuts through the mountains. The total lenght of this river is more than 200 km and its mostly regulated and modified by human except the part that flows though the park. The unchanged natural character and dynamics of the river, steep mountain ranges and huge differences in height  provide suitable living conditions for endangered and rare species of plants and wildlife and high diversity of habitat. Each year the park welcomes over 30 000 visitors from all over the world and many of them are from abroad. We were quite surprised, that our guide said international visitors are often more enthusiastic and consider it even more important then local visitors!

The organisation structure of the park consists of 4 departments, of which the department for environmental education was presented the most. It’s because the education is a crucial step to make the issue of nature conservation more familiar for visitors, students and children. There are many target programs for public as well as for schools. The park employs about 30 national park rangers who work in the field and organise excursions for public and ranger training courses for children (junior ranger project) and adults too. Other programs are targeted for local population (botanical and wildlife excursions) and for schools (partner schools are going to take lessons about the NP - 2 hours a week). Beside the education, a communication and cooperation with representatives from department of environmental education of other austrian national parks is important, they meet 3 times a year.

What we really liked is the form that emploees of the national park educate children, schools and public. They do it in a very attractive and interactive way, it’s something very different then boring informational tables full of text that are read only by really interested people. Sadly, this system still mainly works in national parks of the Czech republic. We should be inspired by the NP Gesause where classes and families are attracted by observing small animals under the microscope, walking in a labyrinth of ecological footprint, listening story of a tree or river, watching 3D mores or using an application for smart phones Gesäuse App which is not finished yet, but going to contain information about the NP related to geography. There are also 2 trails that are opened since the beginning of may to the end of october and pavillon with geological museum and restaurant.

''' National park and sutainability '''