Architecture & Ramsar Centre

Water garden and outdoor area

Landscape Architecture:
Engineering Practice for Landscape Planning –
DI Gerhard Prähofer
www.praehofer.eu

Stairway to Heaven

Architecture: Himmelsleiter:
Manfred Rapf, MSc

What is a Ramsar Centre?

The UnterWasserReich is a Ramsar Information Centre.

The Ramsar Convention is the ‘Convention on Wetlands of International Importance’.  It is one of the oldest international treaties on environmental protection, initiated by the UN and signed in 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar. To date, 169 states have acceded to the Convention; in Austria, 23 sites have so far been included in the ‘List of Wetlands of International Importance’, including the ponds, moors and river landscapes of the Waldviertel region.

The signatory states are obliged by the Convention to conserve biodiversity in the respective areas. Four main
areas must be implemented:
1) protection of wetlands;
2) promotion of international cooperation in the protection of wetlands;
3) promotion of the exchange of information on wetland conservation; and
4) support for the work of the Convention.

The following international Ramsar criteria apply to the Waldviertel’s ponds, moors and river landscapes:

• A wetland is considered to be of international importance if it contains representative, rare or unique examples of natural or near-natural wetland types within the relevant biogeographical region.
• A wetland is considered to be of international importance if it supports endangered, critically endangered species or ecosystems threatened with extinction.
• A wetland is considered to be of international importance if it supports populations of plant and/or animal species that are important for the conservation of biodiversity in the respective region.
• A wetland is considered to be of international importance if it hosts plant and/or animal species at a critical stage of their biological life cycles, or serves as a habitat under adverse conditions.

www.ramsar.org