Wilderness preserved? Representation of wild land within Austria's network of protected areas
Christoph Plutzar
Based on previous studies we present a spatially explicit wilderness assessment for Austria. Using GIS-techniques we identify 39 areas greater than 1000 hectares, which still show characteristics typical for wild lands. As defined by the Wild Europe Initiative (2013), wild lands are known to have high level of predominance of natural processes and natural habitat and therefor are closely related to the aims and goals of protected areas. The vast majority of the locations identified as wild land or wilderness potential areas are situated in alpine regions, underpinning the high anthropogenic impact on low lands. But still we can find valuable regions outside the mountain ranges, which cover important conservation aspects, that can't be represented in a wilderness assessment. We tried to overcome this obstacle by taking regional peculiarities into account, resulting in a list of 50 ‘important areas with very low human impact' for Austria. Some parts of these areas are under protection, others are not. Here want to give a detailed gap-analysis, showing strengths and weaknesses of the Austrian network of strict protected areas in regard to the spatial representation of wild lands. These insights can help to identify needs for action for process conservation and the maintenance of natural habitats.