Visiting the Austrian Ministry of Sustainability and Tourism

The European Wilderness Society had its international team meeting last week, where we discussed a lot of different topics. One of the most important points on the agenda was to discuss the new and upcoming projects. The European Wilderness Society will start four very exiting EU-funded projects this year. In addition, there are several projects starting and running in Austria. These projects are funded by the Austrian Ministry of Sustainability and Tourism.

Ministry of Sustainability and Tourism

This Austrian Ministry, also known as the BMNT, is supervising new an innovative projects regarding sustainable approaches, nature conservation, biodiversity protection, and a lot of other topics. The European Wilderness Society visited the BMNT in Vienna last week. This provided the chance for the entire team to become more familiar with the Ministry.

The team informed itself about the organisational structure of the Ministry, which has seven different sections. Furthermore, the team got a better understanding of the key objectives of the different strategies and the correlating funding opportunities. . Some of them are especially relevant for the many projects that the European Wilderness Society is currently developing.

Starting new projects

The European Wilderness Society has been currently tasked with two different projects by the BMNT. One projects focusing on Youth education and the other one on the Biodiversity of the Fauna in forests with a special focus climate change. Additionally, our organisation is working on several very interesting new project ideas.

Besides the projects financed by the Austrian BMNT the European Wilderness Society has also just recently won an INTERREG CENTRAL Europe project focusing on the management of the World Heritage Beech Forests. The second INTERREG Europe project we were just awarded is focusing on the management of Carpathian protected areas. Both projects will start on April 1st 2019.