With June 2021 and the first workshops to develop the mission statement and management plan, the Biosphere Reserve Lower Mura Valley is now taking concrete shape.

The joint planning and development of the Biosphere Reserve Lower Mura Valley offer special opportunities, also for regional development in Southeast Styria. With the particular importance of sustainability and climate protection, the focus is on the protection of species, soil and water, the preservation of flora and fauna, but also education around and in the biosphere reserve. The Biosphere Reserve Lower Mura Valley thus makes an important contribution to climate change adaptation and sustainable development in southeastern Styria, which was also recognized by local newspapers "Mein Bezirk" and "Kleine Zeitung".

Per the criteria of UNESCO and the “Man and the Biosphere” programme, the development of a concept and management plan will be prescribed once the biosphere reserve has been recognized, which took place for the Biosphere Reserve Lower Mura Valley in June 2019.

Together with the E.C.O. Institute for Ecology (experts Lisa Wolf, MSc and DI Daniel Zollner) and Landenentwicklung Steiermark (regional supervisor Bianca Lamprecht, BA MA), the region of Southeast Styria is working on fulfilling these criteria.

To this end, a total of three workshops with regional actors and experts will be held at the FS Halbenrain, as an educational location in the Biosphere Reserve Lower Mura Valley.
The first workshop took place on June 16 2021 in bright weather. In the morning, the first field of action in the management plan was worked on in a work sequence in the Rothof of FS Halbenrain. There was prominent expert input from the Secretary General of the Austrian MAB National Committee Mag. Dr. Günter Koeck. Slovenian project partners from the Interreg project lifelineMDD as well as the lead partner WWF Austria, represented by river expert Arno Mohl and project manager lifelineMDD Dr. Kerstin Böck.

In the afternoon we went to the buffer zone of the Biosphere Reserve Lower Mura Valley, to the Halbenrain Everglades. Dr. Andreas Breuss, European protection area officer and absolute expert on the biosphere reserve, led the participants on a specialist excursion through the alluvial forest of the biosphere reserve in the municipality of Halbenrain.

Two more workshops will follow in July, including specialist excursions to the buffer and core zones of the Lower Murtal biosphere reserve in Bad Radkersburg and Mureck.
Photo provided by RMSO.