NATURE CONSERVATION, TRADITIONAL LIVING SPACE, OR TOURIST ATTRACTION - THE HOHE-TAUERN-NATIONAL-PARK, AUSTRIA

By international standards, national parks are natural areas where eco systems, for the most part, have not been substantially modified by hu man activity, and which have been set aside to protect and preserve th e features of the landscape. In Austria the Hohe Tauern National Park represents a high mountain area which combines a diversified alpine la ndscape and ecosystem with the century-old traditions of local populat ion. Based on initiatives beginning in 1971 to establish the Hohe Taue rn National Park, between 1983 and 1991 the Lander of Carinthia, Salzb urg, and Tyrol worked together and gradually enlarged the Park to a no n-contiguous area of 1,800 km(2) which includes a total of 29 communit ies. In an attempt to conserve nature, preserve traditional living spa ce, and promote tourism, the National Park area was subdivided into a high alpine core zone of largely unspoiled nature and an outer zone wh ich includes landscapes modified by human impact. Zoning has been intr oduced to foster interrelationships and interaction between wilderness areas and adjacent seminatural cultural landscapes. The fifteen-year old history of the Park has been marked by a series of diverse goals a nd potential land-use conflicts which required the active involvement of the local population into the planning process of the National Park . This partnership approach, which resulted in a so-called 'eco-realis m' compromise, has reversed the initial widespread rejection of the pa rk concept and won the approval of the local population.