European Wilderness Society

European Wilderness Society
legal form	Association ( ZVR : 305471009)
founding	2014
Seat	Tamsweg , Austria
motto	Let's get wild!
purpose	environmental Protection
Action space	Europe
people	Max AE Rossberg, Vlado Vancura
Website	wilderness-society.org

The European Wilderness Society , based in Austria, is a non-profit European non-governmental organization that has set itself the task of identifying and certifying Europe's last wilderness , wild coasts, rivers, primeval forests and islands and marketing them in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way ( nature tourism ) and Support administration in order to be able to maintain the areas permanently. Since this is an organization that operates throughout Europe, the English term "wilderness" is used uniformly - also in other languages.

To achieve its goals, the association has developed the European Wilderness Quality Standard and Audit System together with numerous wilderness organizations (including Wild Europe, Wildland Research Institute, UNEP , WWF , IUCN , FZS , EUROPARC , UNWTO , John Muir Trust and UNESCO ) , a uniform European certification system for existing and potential wilderness areas and wild areas ( wilderness development areas ).

history

The European Wilderness Society was registered in Tamsweg , Austria in March 2014 as a non-profit environmental protection association for the protection of the European wilderness. In the first two years of the association, eight protected areas were certified. Max AE Rossberg and Vlado Vancura lead the European Wilderness Society. The wolf expert Gudrun Pflüger is also part of the international team.

In addition, all protected areas that had already been certified by the PAN Parks Foundation , which has been in liquidation since 2014 , have been integrated into the new Wilderness Network. However, the European Wilderness Society expressly points out that there was no further legal or financial relationship with the PAN Park Foundation.

aims

The primary goal of the association is that

• identification
• recognition
• Administration and
• marketing

of wilderness areas in Europe.

Definition of "Wilderness" and "Wild Areas"

On February 3, 2009, the European Parliament passed the "Resolution of the European Parliament of February 3, 2009 on Wilderness in Europe", calling on the European Commission, among other things, to establish a European definition of wilderness, the potential areas (differentiated according to "Wilderness "And" Wild Areas ") in a wilderness register and to support the European Wilderness Society in the area administration. All considerations of the association are based on the wilderness definition of the European Wilderness Working Group from September 2013.

Wilderness

Wilderness areas in which natural processes take place with open timing and results achieve the gold or platinum category of the "European Wilderness Quality Standard and Audit System". These areas, known as “wilderness”, are characterized by native habitats and species and are large enough that the natural dynamic processes can take place effectively and undisturbed. You are in an original or only slightly changed state without interfering human activities (raw material extraction, settlements, infrastructure) or visual disturbances.

Wild areas

Wilderness areas of the bronze or silver category are referred to as "wild areas". They are landscapes with a high proportion of natural habitats and unhindered natural, time and result open dynamic processes. However, they are usually smaller and less coherent than the wilderness of the gold or platinum category. In the past, their ecological status was partially or substantially affected by human activities such as permanent grazing, hunting, fishing and the gathering of wild fruits and mushrooms.

Certification of Wilderness and Wild Areas

In cooperation with European and international nature conservation organizations, the association has developed the European Wilderness Quality Standard and Audit System according to strict quality criteria for European wilderness protected areas. The German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation assesses this certification under private law as an exemplary and first transnational evaluation system for wilderness areas in Europe.

To be designated as a wilderness, an existing protected area must have a wilderness core zone between 500 and 10,000 hectares - depending on the habitat - with an unpopulated, uncut and, if possible, ahemerobic natural landscape. The long-term goal for a wilderness area should be a total size of up to 20,000 hectares. This is to ensure that the self-regulation of the naturally occurring processes in the ecosystems and the protection of a sufficiently large population of endangered animal and plant species are preserved. In addition, the negative anthropogenic influences decrease with increasing size , which, however, can never be completely ruled out.

For an area to be included in the network, the protected areas must be internationally recognized, for example as a European natural heritage ( Natura 2000 ), UNESCO World Heritage Site , RAMSAR or IUCN protected area . A certified wilderness is divided into three zones:

• The core zone, in which open-ended, undefined, natural dynamic processes run undisturbed and uninfluenced,
• the renaturation zone, which will be transferred to the wilderness core zone in the long term after appropriate renaturation measures (rewilding) and
• the buffer zone, which acts as a transition zone between the core zone and the surrounding cultural landscape .

In order to ensure the most natural possible development of the areas, an administration must exist that monitors the preservation and restoration of ecological processes and biological diversity in the ecosystems and promotes it in the renaturation zone. Areas certified by the European Wilderness Society prohibit any use that could impair nature, such as B. forestry , hunting or wildlife management , collecting minerals or motorized tourism. The fight against neobiota and the suppression of fire are also prohibited in the core zone. If necessary, these measures will be carried out in the renaturation and buffer zone under strict supervision. Here, as a rule, only open-ended process protection applies to natural cycles. Using nine guiding principles, 54 criteria and more than 300 wilderness indicators, potential wilderness areas are uniformly assessed throughout Europe .

Based on the nine guiding principles:

1. Minimum size and zoning,
2. Natural dynamic processes and biodiversity ,
3. Management,
4. Renaturation,
5. Extraction of raw materials,
6. factors affecting wilderness,
7. Control interventions in the case of alien species, fires and natural events,
8. Research and monitoring,
9. International recognition

an area is classified in four different wilderness categories: bronze, silver, gold and platinum and can develop from a "wild area" to a "wilderness" in a long-term process. The association does not designate any new protected areas. From a nature conservation point of view, it was rather a Europe-wide evaluation system for already existing protected areas.

European Wilderness Network

All wilderness areas certified by the European Wilderness Society are listed in a specially created network, the "European Wilderness Network". In this network there are the following categories for wilderness areas:

• Wilderness
• WILDForests (in cooperation with the European Beech Forest Network)
• WILDIslands (in collaboration with the Danube Transnational Program, with DanubeParks 2.0 and WWF Austria )
• WILDCoasts
• WILDRivers (in cooperation with the European River Network)

The European Wilderness Network currently comprises 41 protected areas in 16 countries with a total of 316,536 hectares of wilderness core zone according to the European wilderness definition. The European Wilderness Society has set itself the goal of assessing this area on 500,000 hectares by 2020 and one million hectares of wilderness area by 2030 and securing it by contract.

Europe's wilderness and current wilderness areas

The basis of the following map is the representation of all areas of Europe that are largely unaffected by humans at the beginning of the 21st century. Areas that have always been only marginally used (almost exclusively in the far north) show the expected natural vegetation , while in the other areas it is mostly formerly used landscapes that have been abandoned for a longer or shorter time. The vegetation of the latter areas ranges from near-natural substitute societies to the respective climax vegetation .

The enormous diversity and dynamics of anthropogenic influences - especially in the densely populated land use of Europe, which has changed several times over the centuries - has transformed large areas of natural biomes into "man-made" landscapes, which are also known as anthromes . With the definition of so-called hemerobic degrees , theoretical delimitations were created in order to subdivide the land surface according to specific ecological criteria. Nevertheless, the transitions in reality remain fluid and due to the differences in data collection and evaluation, the models deviate more or less strongly from each other.

The colored areas on the map shown show the natural and semi-natural areas of Europe in two categories:

1. The lighter color shows areas with predominantly undisturbed succession and marginal infrastructure and thus roughly corresponds to the "Wild Areas"
2. The darker coloring shows the areas that best correspond to the idea of ​​"wilderness". In contrast to the broader areas mentioned above, an essentially complete, natural fauna can also be assumed here.

In total, a maximum of 18% of Europe's land area can be described as near-natural. Almost nine tenths of them are in the tundra and taiga of Northern Europe. Of these, in turn, more than two thirds are in northwest Russia. The wild landscapes on Iceland and in Fennos Scandinavia are already clearly fragmented, but still meet the strict criteria of the IUCN World Conservation Union . If you count Europe without Russia, max. 8% met the criteria of the Last of the wild study.

(see also: Special case Europe and world map in the article Wilderness )

Archipelago WILDCoast Borjomi-Karagauli Wilderness Central Balkan Wilderness Čepkeliai Wilderness Chornyy Dil Wilderness Darvaika Wilderness Dyje WILDRiver Fulufjället Wilderness Gorgany Wilderness Hainich WILDForest Hohe Tauern Wilderness Hoverla Wilderness Jasmund WILDCoast Kalkalpen Wilderness and WILDForest Kitka WILDRiver Königsbrücker Heide Wilderness Küre Wilderness Kuziy-Trybushany WILDForest Majella Wilderness Mala Uholka WILDRiver Maramarosh Wilderness Olanga WILDRiver Oulanka Wilderness Oulanka WILDRiver Paanajärvi Wilderness Peneda-Gerês Wilderness Podyjí Wilderness Retezat Wilderness Rila Wilderness Shyrokyy Luh WILDRiver Soomaa Wilderness Teiču Wilderness Thaya WILDRiver Thayatal WILDForest Uholka-Shyrokyy Luh Wilderness and WILDForest Velyka Uholka WILDRiver Vilm WILDIsland Zacharovanyy Kray Wilderness Zacharovanyy Kray WILDForest

Wilderness (darker colors) and near-natural areas (lighter colors) in Europe at the beginning of the 21st century, strict protected areas and “wilderness” areas Ice sheets , glaciers and cold deserts Tundras , forest tundras and alpine vegetation Temperate coniferous and mixed forests Temperate deciduous forests Subtropical Wet forests Subtropical dry forest and shrubbery formations Tempered steppes and forest steppes Deserts and semi-deserts ...     border between the two studies used ▢     Protected areas of IUCN categories Ia (Strict Nature Reserve) and Ib (Wilderness Area) and II (National Park)     Position of the wilderness areas ( Place the mouse shows the name, click leads to the display in zoomable internet maps)        

Certified European wilderness areas (as of October 2018)

Wilderness area / river length	Name of the protected area	Country	Coordinates	Web link
10,600 ha	Archipelago WILDCoast	Finland	59.968 ° N, 22.159 ° E	European Wilderness Network
50,325 ha	Borjomi-Karagauli Wilderness	Georgia	41.85 ° N, 43.216 ° E	European Wilderness Network
20,019 ha	Central Balkan Wilderness	Bulgaria	42.729 ° N, 24.698 ° E	European Wilderness Network
13,004 hectares	Čepkeliai Wilderness	Lithuania	53.993 ° N, 24.486 ° E	European Wilderness Network
1,580 ha	Chornyy Dil Wilderness	Ukraine	48.534 ° N, 23.811 ° E	European Wilderness Network
1,450 ha	Darvaika Wilderness	Ukraine	48.488 ° N, 23.771 ° E	European Wilderness Network
2 km	Dyje WILDRiver	Czech Republic	48.88 ° N, 15.841 ° E	European Wilderness Network
19,000 ha	Fulufjället Wilderness	Sweden	61.544 ° N, 12.741 ° E	European Wilderness Network
4,800 ha	Gorgany Wilderness	Ukraine	48.406 ° N, 24.365 ° E	European Wilderness Network
4,875 ha	Hainich WILDForest	Germany	51.07 ° N, 10.432 ° E	European Wilderness Network
6,728 ha	Hohe Tauern Wilderness	Austria	47.115 ° N, 12.265 ° E	European Wilderness Network
4,477 ha	Hoverla Wilderness	Ukraine	48.152 ° N, 24.52 ° E	European Wilderness Network
806 ha	Jasmund WILDCoast	Germany	54.561 ° N, 13.678 ° E	European Wilderness Network
13,034 ha	Limestone Alps Wilderness	Austria	47.77 ° N, 14.367 ° E	European Wilderness Network
5,251 ha	Kalkalpen WILDForest	Austria	47.78 ° N, 14.413 ° E	European Wilderness Network
16 km	Kitka WILDRiver	Finland	66.395 ° N, 29.205 ° E	European Wilderness Network
5,600 ha	Königsbrücker Heide Wilderness	Germany	51.323 ° N, 13.879 ° E	European Wilderness Network
26,162 ha	Küre Wilderness	Turkey	41.722 ° N, 32.805 ° E	European Wilderness Network
1,370 ha	Kuziy-Trybushany WILDForest	Ukraine	47.956 ° N, 24.138 ° E	European Wilderness Network
15,960 ha	Majella Wilderness	Italy	42.109 ° N, 14.167 ° E	European Wilderness Network
7 km	Mala Uholka WILDRiver	Ukraine	48.268 ° N, 23.631 ° E	European Wilderness Network
3,162 ha	Maramarosh Wilderness	Ukraine	47.937 ° N, 24.301 ° E	European Wilderness Network
36 km	Olanga WILDRiver	Russia	66.264 ° N, 30.385 ° E	European Wilderness Network
12,924 ha	Oulanka Wilderness	Finland	66.397 ° N, 29.369 ° E	European Wilderness Network
26 km	Oulanka WILDRiver	Finland	66.466 ° N, 29.184 ° E	European Wilderness Network
30,000 ha	Paanajärvi Wilderness	Russia	66.295 ° N, 29.845 ° E	European Wilderness Network
5,000 hectares	Peneda-Gerês Wilderness	Portugal	41.832 ° N, 8.132 ° W	European Wilderness Network
254 ha	Podyjí Wilderness	Czech Republic	48.88 ° N, 15.825 ° E	European Wilderness Network
10,440 ha	Retezat Wilderness	Romania	45.352 ° N, 22.782 ° E	European Wilderness Network
16,222 ha	Rila Wilderness	Bulgaria	42.159 ° N, 23.552 ° E	European Wilderness Network
9 km	Shyrokyy Luh WILDRiver	Ukraine	48.285 ° N, 23.661 ° E	European Wilderness Network
11,530 ha	Soomaa Wilderness	Estonia	58.49 ° N, 25.134 ° E	European Wilderness Network
4,570 ha	Teiču Wilderness	Latvia	56.565 ° N, 26.531 ° E	European Wilderness Network
2 km	Thaya WILDRiver	Austria	48.849 ° N, 15.837 ° E	European Wilderness Network
250 ha	Thayatal WILDForest	Austria	48.868 ° N, 15.837 ° E	European Wilderness Network
7,117 ha	Uholka-Shyrokyy Luh Wilderness and WILDForest	Ukraine	48.315 ° N, 23.733 ° E	European Wilderness Network
8 kilometers	Velyka Uholka WILDRiver	Ukraine	48.281 ° N, 23.689 ° E	European Wilderness Network
162 ha	Vilm WILDIsland	Germany	54.317 ° N, 13.526 ° E	European Wilderness Network
1,332 ha	Zacharovanyy Kray Wilderness and WILDForest	Ukraine	48.409 ° N, 23.11 ° E	European Wilderness Network
316,453 ha	42 wilderness areas	17 countries

Long-term protection of the wilderness areas

Wilderness is characterized by the temporally and spatially unrestricted sequence of natural dynamic processes. It is therefore important that wilderness areas are protected not only financially but also socially. In order to ensure long-term financing of the wilderness areas and, in addition, to achieve acceptance by the population and economic added value for the regions in which the protected areas are located, the organization relies on the promotion of tailor-made regional and sustainable development projects and sustainable tourism .

International cooperation and recognition

The association strives for wide acceptance by the international nature conservation bodies and therefore also does lobbying work. One cooperates with the European Commission . a. with WWF , Europarc and Eurosite to raise awareness of the wilderness. On a global level, the association tries to compare its certification method with the protected area categories of the IUCN , on which the European Wilderness Quality Standard is based.

Web links

European Wilderness Society

Remarks

1. ↑ The delimitation of the areas west of the red dotted border is primarily based on the European wilderness continuum map of the Wildland Research Institute in Leeds (GB) - AT Kuiters, M. van Eupen, S. Carver, M. Fisher, Z. Kun & V. Vancura: Wilderness register and indicator for Europe - Final report. (Contract No: 07.0307 / 2011/610387 / SER / B.3), pdf version 2013. P. 59 (European wilderness continuum) and 60 (The 10%, 5% and 1% wildest cells of Europe). East of the border and outside of Europe, the American study " Last of the wild " - Study "Last of the wild - Version 2" was published on the "Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC)" website of the "Center for International Earth Science Information Network ( CIESIN) "from Columbia University, New York - September 2012 query used .
2. ↑ For reasons of clarity and clarity, only protected areas over approx. 100 km² have been drawn in for Iceland, Fennos Scandinavia and Northwest Russia, and smaller ones in the rest of Europe

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wild Europe , accessed October 26, 2018.
2. ↑ Wildland Research Institute , accessed October 26, 2018.
3. ↑ Peter Finck, Manfred Klein, Uwe Riecken and Cornelia Paulsch: Wilderness in Dialogue Paths to more wilderness in Germany . In: Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Ed.): BfN Sktipte . No. 404 . Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Bonn 2014, p. 121 .
4. ^ European Wilderness Network - . In: European Wilderness Society . ( european-wilderness.network [accessed October 26, 2018]).
5. ^ PAN Parks advised to file bankruptcy , accessed on January 9, 2019.
6. ↑ Resolution of the European Parliament of February 3, 2009 on the wilderness in Europe European Parliament . February 3, 2009, accessed October 20, 2018
7. ↑ Wilderness Register European Commission . accessed on October 26, 2018
8. ↑ Wild Europe Wilderness Working Group: A Working Definition of European Wilderness and Wild Areas. In: A Working Definition of European Wilderness and Wild Areas. Wild Europe, 2013, accessed March 16, 2017 (UK English). 
9. ↑ European Wilderness Quality Standard and Audit System . In: European Wilderness Society . ( wilderness-society.org [accessed March 16, 2017]).
10. ↑ Kerstin Wörler, Andrea Burmester and Gisela Stolpe: Evaluation of management effectiveness in large German protected areas . In: Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Ed.): BFN scripts . No. 173 . Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Bonn 2006, p. 147 .
11. ↑ G. Aplet, J. Thomson, M. Wilbert: Indicators of Wildness: Using Attributes of the Land to Assess the Context of Wilderness . In: USDA Forest Service (Ed.): USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRSP 15 (2) . 2000, p. 89-98 .
12. ↑ European Commission: Guidelines on Wilderness in Natura 2000 ( en-gb ). European Commission, 2013, ISBN 978-92-79-31157-4 .
13. ^ European Wilderness Network , accessed October 26, 2018.
14. ^ European Beech Forest Network , accessed October 26, 2018.
15. ↑ Interreg Danube , accessed on October 26, 2018.
16. ↑ Danubeparks 2.0 , accessed on 26 October 2018th
17. ^ European River Network , accessed October 26, 2018.