Rothwald

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Rothwald

The Rothwald (also known as the Rotwald ) is a 40 km², partly natural forest area in the Lower Austrian Limestone Alps , south and south-east of the Dürrenstein massif . It lies on the southern edge of the Eisenwurzen region and the Scheibbs district as far as Styria . The most pristine part of the Rothwald is the "Urwald Rothwald", a primary forest of around 4 km² in the municipality of Gaming . This primeval forest is the core of the only wilderness area in Austria of category Ia of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources  (IUCN). One third of the Dürrenstein wilderness area with its currently 35 km² area is located in the Rothwald region, two thirds extend on the south-western and western slopes of the Dürrenstein massif.

Location and development of the protected area

The strictly protected nature reserve includes the small and large primeval forest in the eastern part, with a total of almost 500 hectares that were never used for forestry purposes. This situation, which is unique in Austria, came about due to the remote location, the ownership structure and a centuries-long border dispute. The first owner was Kartause Gaming . For them, the area was an orographic exclave behind the watershed on the Dürrenstein, which made it difficult to bring wood. After the Carthusian monastery was dissolved by Joseph II in 1782, the area was nationalized and only privatized again in 1825 and sold to the Counts Festetics , who also tried to connect the forest area to the hermitage on the White Ois by means of a forest railway , but this turned out to be uneconomical. After further changes of ownership in 1864, it was sold to the Rothschild family in 1875 , who left the jungle area completely untouched. In terms of today's environmental protection, Albert Rothschild decided in 1875 to continue to preserve the area as a primary forest for posterity.

In 1997, the state of Lower Austria, together with the landowners, the then Rothschild'schen Forstverwaltung Langau and the Österreichische Bundesforste - AG , secured a protected area of ​​2,400 hectares and 1997-2001 as part of a LIFE project of the EU under the scientific supervision of the Viennese University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences is preparing the recognition as a wilderness area in Dürrenstein . At the end of 2002, the state of Lower Austria declared it a permanent nature reserve and in the following year it was recognized internationally by the IUCN as the only category I wilderness area in Austria.

The jungle area lies in a wide hollow behind the Dürrenstein peaks at an altitude of around 900 to 1300 meters. This area is drained by the Rothaus and Moderbach. There are trails in the entire protected area, but there are only a few former forest trails and marked trails that can be used by individual visitors. The larger western part of the land owned by Österreichische Bundesforste AG now extends to the Styrian border between Hochkirch (1468 m above sea level) and Ringkogel (1668 m above sea level) after the area was expanded by around 100 ha in 2013 .

The name Rothwald was originally (long before Rothschild bought the area) the south of the area, where on the other side of the Grenzbach on the Styrian side the wooded area slowly rises to the herb massif . The forester's house and hamlet immediately north of the Lassingbach (the border to Lower Austria) also bears this name (the assumption that the Rothwald got its name from Rothschild is therefore incorrect). Also worth mentioning are the Rothschild houses , which are located in the wider vicinity of the wilderness area.

In 2017, the primeval forest Rothwald and parts of the Kalkalpen National Park with other forests in Europe were named UNESCO World Natural Heritage Beech Forests and Old Beech Forests of the Carpathian Mountains and other regions of Europe .

On January 26, 2019, the Wiener Zeitung reported that the Rothschild family intended to sell their last possessions in Austria, including forest areas of 7,000 hectares , which also include the Rothwald (400 hectares). The purchase price was allegedly 190 million euros, the buyer is the Prinzhorn family .

literature

  • Baschny, O. (1970) Rothwald - a primeval forest in Lower Austria. Forest and woodwork. 208, 209
  • Robischon, M. (2006) In the dark jungle. Land of Mountains 3: 48-54
  • Zukrigl, K. (1966) Remnants of primeval forest in the Lower Austrian Limestone Alps. Applied Plant Sociology 18/19: 289-296.
  • Matthias Schickhofer: Primeval forest in Austria - the last wild forest paradises. Brandstätter, Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-85033-697-0 .

See also

Web links

Commons : Wildnisgebiet Dürrenstein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Protected area wienerzeitung.at, accessed on February 17, 2016
  2. ↑ Reinhard Pekny: The wilderness area in historical review . In: Silva Fera, Volume 1, 2012 , pp. 9–15. ( online on Zobodat ).
  3. ↑ A similar situation was found on the Gippel rulership grounds, but they were thinned out in the 19th century. Only the Lahnsattler primeval forest has been preserved there.
  4. ↑ a b Hermann Weiß, Hildegard Wiesenhofer and Franz Wiesenhofer: "The Trifts on the Great Erlauf" - The beginnings of the Erlauftrift.
  5. ↑ Austria above and below the Enns (1809-1818) - Franziszeische Landesaufnahme ( online at mapire.eu )
  6. ↑ a b The End of the Rothschild Era in Gaming , ORF , June 30, 2019, accessed on November 5, 2019.
  7. ↑ orf.at: World Natural Heritage: Austrian beech forests listed . Article dated July 7, 2017, accessed July 8, 2017.
  8. ^ Wiener Zeitung, edition 019, 2019, page 11, "Rothschild-Wald sold"
  9. ↑ Rothschilds sell last forest , NÖN , January 29, 2019, accessed on November 5, 2019.

Coordinates: 47 ° 45 ′ 13 ″  N , 15 ° 3 ′ 9 ″  E