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Thayatal WILDForest and Thaya WILDRiver Brief

Today we are releasing two new Wilderness Briefs, for Thayatal WILDForest and Thaya WILDRiver. Both are Wilderness areas in Nationalpark Thayatal, Austria, and became part of the European Wilderness Network in 2018.

The name Thayatal can be translated into ‘valley of the Thaya river’, which is an impressive valley with steep cliffs and dense broadleaf forests. The valley is also home to valuable fragments of WILDRiver. Together with Podyji Wilderness and Dyje WILDRiver, these areas form a transboundary Wilderness.

Categories of Wilderness

All certified members of the European Wilderness Network undergo an according to the European Wilderness Quality Standard and Audit System. They are then classified according to their predominant habitat into the following five categories:

  • Wilderness – Wilderness with a mixed habitat and a minimum Wilderness zone size of 1 000 ha
  • WILDCoast – Wilderness combining terrestrial, coastal and marine habitat
  • WILDForest – Wilderness with a predominant forest habitat
  • WILDIsland – Island with a terrestrial, coastal and surrounding marine Wilderness habitat
  • WILDRiver – Wilderness along rivers and riverbank habitats

In the case of Thayatal WILDForest and Thaya WILDRiver, the European Wilderness Society auditors classified the Wilderness in Nationalpark Thayatal into two Wilderness areas – a WILDForest and a WILDRiver.

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