The bilateral Interreg project AgriNatur AT-HU investigates the nature conservation significance of biological field use for species protection and biodiversity. This is specifically investigated in the project areas in the Viennese part of the Donau-Auen National Park (Austria) and the Natura 2000 Mosoni plain protected area (Hungary). Both areas are in the lowland alluvial of the Danube and contain alluvial forests in mosaics with floodplain water bodies, meadows, and arable farming.

Research relevant to the project such as monitoring of agrobiodiversity, collection of the empirical knowledge of those responsible locally and field trials of organic agriculture serve to identify and optimise positive effects of organic agriculture on biodiversity, resilience and protected species.

In the project, the City of Vienna - Forestry Office and Urban Agriculture, Bio Forschung Austria and Széchenyi István University cooperate with strategic partners, experts, and local authorities to develop AgriNatur strategies to ensure positive nature conservation effects of organic agriculture. Experiences about conflicts of use and solutions in comparable European nature reserves should provide valuable inputs.

Environmental education measures in the project include, above all, the design of new local recreation areas to make the positive synergies between nature conservation and agriculture tangible. In the project area Vienna, the educational measures will be implemented in the Neue Lobau, in Hungary in the urban area of Mosonmagyaróvár.

 

Period: 01.01.2019. – 28.02.2022.

Funding: 85% ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) and with 15% national contribution

Hungarian project leader: Dr. András Vér PhD, senior research fellow, ver.andras@sze.hu 

More information about the project: https://www.interreg-athu.eu/en