Study tour to the Morava River

Wide range consultations were conducted here as well, prior to the intervention, which included not only farmers, fishermen and other competent Austrian authorities, but also the water management authorities from the other side of the border. It was very instructive to see, what kind of problems can be triggered by a natural border concomitant with a river. This is true for the Morava river, where many restoration proposals are made unaccomplishable for this reason. The process includes measures to reduce its regulation, to restore its natural state and rhythm, to give opportunity and space for rapid changes. In our case only those interventions can be carried out, which do not result in a significant change of the location of the river. Those however were successfully implemented by the water authorities, leading the above mentioned project. The work extended to the rehabilitation of the side branch of the river, the restoration of the biodiversity, and the natural water supply of the land, and also to supress the invasive species in the area.

After examining the sites of the ongoing project, we continued our journey to explore the floodplain, extending over 1000 hectares, in which the WWF Austria holds shares. In Hungary, the white stork is brooding almost exclusively on artificial, man-made objects, like chimneys and electric pylons. Here on the floodplain however, they still use the chimneys, but they are, in large quantities, brooding on trees as well. This phenomenon makes the area very unique. The grasslands of this diverse land is mainly scythed, but they also graze smaller horses on them.