Location: Upper Austria Map
Area: 21,000 hectares
Official site
Kalkalpen National Park is a protected reserve in the Northern Limestone Alps in the state of Upper Austria in Austria. In fact its name Kalk- alpen is derived from the name of its location.
The National Park Society is based in Molln, but there are also
visitor centers in Reichraming and Windischgarsten that offer
information material, events and exhibitions. Other surrounding
towns are: Roßleithen, Rosenau am Hengstpaß, Weyer, Großraming and
St. Pankraz.
The national park covers an area of 20,856
hectares. Of these, 89% are designated as a natural zone, eleven
percent are conservation zones. 88% of the area is owned by the
Austrian Federal Forests, 11% privately owned and 1% municipally
owned.
People lived in the national park region as early as the Stone Age.
Seven stone artefacts from Stone Age hunters between 18,000 and 10,000
BC. Chr. were found in the Nixloch (municipality of Losenstein).
Several axes and a lance point from around 1000 BC have been found in
the municipality of Windischgarsten. found. They point to a settlement
and inspection of the passes.
In this part of Upper Austria, on
the borders with Lower Austria and Styria, mainly wood was felled in the
core of the limestone foothills for the small iron industry of the
Eisenwurzen, and in particular the large-scale industry around the city
of Steyr - most small streams carry too little water for iron works
themselves. The hunting grounds of the Counts of Lamberg, in which the
heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand was also a hunting tenant after 1900,
were particularly untouched. Even in the interwar period, a transport
axis was created with the Reichraming forest railway, which was in
operation until the early 1970s. Even after the decline of the iron
processing industry (particularly during the global economic crisis), a
largely intact natural and cultural landscape was preserved here.
In 1976 the nature reserve Sengsengebirge was established. From the
1980s, active people (grassroots group, ARGE) and the ÖNB nature
conservation association were involved in opposing both the project by
the steel company VÖEST to set up a firing range for tanks in the
uninhabited Hintergebirge and the subsequent plans by Ennskraftwerke AG
to set up two reservoirs in the Hintergebirge. After the "occupation" of
the Hintergebirge by opponents of the power plant (during the conflicts
surrounding the Hainburg Au), the prospective power plant gave up his
plan in April 1985.
Already in 1983 there were first plans for a
national park in the Reichraminger Hintergebirge. At that time, Upper
Austria did not yet have its own national park. Planning began in 1990,
and the corresponding national park law was passed in 1996 in the Upper
Austrian state parliament. On July 21, 1997, the National Park was
established by decree, initially on an area of 16,509 hectares, and on
July 25, 1997, the Kalkalpen National Park was finally opened. The
international recognition of the Kalkalpen National Park by the IUCN as
a category II protected area took place in the same year.
In
2001, the national park was expanded to 18,400 hectares. In 2003 it was
expanded again to 20,856 hectares. Since 2004, the national park has
also been a Ramsar area and Natura 2000 area (European protected area
under both the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive). In 2009
there was a further change in area in accordance with the decision of
the EC Commission of December 12, 2008.
In 2013, a dispute about
the intended construction of the first wind power plants in the region
around the national park began. In September 2013, Energie AG OÖ gave up
its two wind power projects planned in the Steyr and Ennstal valleys
because measurements had shown that the wind levels in the
Sonnkogel-Schneeberg and Fahrenberg-Mittereck areas were not sufficient
for economic viability. With the new wind power master plan in 2017,
this became obsolete, and since then the entire Alpine region of the
federal state has been a strict exclusion zone for large-scale plants.
In 2017, parts of the Kalkalpen National Park together with the
Rothwald primeval forest and other forests in Europe were declared a
UNESCO World Heritage Site Primeval Beech Forests and Old Beech Forests
of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe.
The highest peak is the Hohe Nock at 1963 meters.
Four-fifths
of the site is forested, with a mixed forest of spruce, fir and beech
dominating.
There are over 200 km of undeveloped streams and 800
springs in the national park area.
The main types of rock in the
national park are Wetterstein limestone and main dolomite.
So
far, more than 70 caves have been discovered in the area of the
Kalkalpen National Park. The largest cave system in the national park is
the Klara Cave, which was discovered in 2004. The deepest cave is the
Krestenberg shaft, which drops 412 m from its entrance at 1165 m above
sea level. There are also ice caves in the park, these are only
accessible to experienced cavers. The “Ice Chapel” is located in the
Sengsen Mountains. This cave essentially consists of a 60 m long, 30 m
wide and about 6 m high hall. In some years, an ice pillar stays in the
middle of the room until autumn. This cave used to be called "Devil's
Chapel" by the locals.
Around 30 species of mammals, 80 species of breeding birds and 1500
species of butterflies live in the park. The flora has over 1000
different species of flowering plants, ferns and mosses.
Endangered species of mammals include otters, dormice and numerous
species of bats in the national park. There are individual records of
brown bears, lynxes and beavers.
The park is the habitat of many
bird species that are on the Red List in Austria, including:
capercaillie, tree falcon, black grouse, whinchat, kingfisher, gray
heron, hawk, hazel grouse, stock dove, short-toed eagle, black stork,
golden eagle, sparrowhawk, eagle owl, woodcock, peregrine falcon ,
dipper, white-backed woodpecker, honey buzzard, meadow pipit, nightjar
and little flycatcher.
Endangered reptiles in the park include:
Aesculapian snake, mountain lizard, slow worm, smooth snake/smooth
snake, adder, grass snake and sand lizard.
Of the more than 850
proven plant species in the park, 102 are on the Red List of Endangered
Plants in Upper Austria.
In 2019, the oldest dated beech tree in
Europe was discovered. Their oldest tree rings have been dated to 1474.
The oldest previously dated beech tree in Europe, around 20 years
younger, is also located in the national park.
The
national park area is under special protection and is easily accessible
with hiking trails. The surrounding communities use the area exclusively
for soft tourism.
There are 20 alpine pastures in the
conservation zone, only a few of which are farmed.
Worth
mentioning is the mountain cycle path on the old route of the former
Reichraming forest railway, which opens up the eastern part of the
national park. At the Brunnbach information hut in the national park,
information about the forest railway is conveyed on display boards.