“Advisory Mission” – UNESCO Commission for the Study of Projects in the World Heritage Area

The environmental organization “Alliance for Nature” has repeatedly expressed concern about the Burgenland region, which is on the World Heritage List. Above all, the construction around Lake Neusiedl with the mega-tourism project in Virtorakos, Hungary, as well as on the Austrian side in Breitenbrunn, Ugau, Guesse or Neusiedl am See, will have a negative impact on the world cultural heritage and its outstanding universal value. .exceptional universal value (short) work. In addition, the Alliance for Nature recently pointed out the planned re-energy project for the wind farm in Neusiedl/Weiden am See, as well as the gradual drying up of the salt lakes and the risk of contamination of the groundwater and the lake with Danube waters. .

The latter was also decisive in proposing to send an advisory commission by UNESCO: “Since the problem of wind farms near the UNESCO World Heritage site “Fertő/Neusiedlersee” and the weakness of visual axes has recently become acute again, it was “the time has come to The UNESCO World Heritage Center begins an “advisory mission” to verify the compatibility of all the above projects with the World Heritage site,” wrote the Alliance for Nature in a report submitted to the BVZ to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

The UNESCO World Heritage Center is now following this proposal in its draft decision submitted to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. “Alliance for Nature” – General Secretary Christian Schohebuck assumes that the committee will follow the recommendation of the World Heritage Center: “as in 90 percent of the cases.” Schöhbuck expects that an advisory committee composed of international experts will be set up – an “advisory mission” will arrive in the Fertö-Neusiedler See World Heritage area.

This has been the case before, when the Pannonia Tower Hotel in Parndorf was planned to be 73 meters high. After the participation of the UNESCO expert committee, the tower was built at a height of 47 meters. For comparison: the wind turbines planned for not far from Parndorf in Neusiedl and Weiden are planned to be 244 meters high.

UNESCO demand: suspension of planning and implementation of all tourism projects

The Fertö-Neusiedler See’s World Heritage status will not be at risk in Riyadh. The ‘Red List’ of World Heritage Sites in Danger shouldn’t (yet) be a problem. But the environmental organization “Alliance for Nature”, whose cause is supported by the regional association “Freunde des Neusiedlersee”, sees the recommendation to send an “advisory mission” as a powerful symbol and a great success. Also because in a draft decision of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, the contracting states Austria and Hungary are required to consider suspending the planning and implementation of all tourism-related development projects along the lakeshore. This will continue until a joint inventory of all existing and planned tourist facilities along the shore of the lake is undertaken and their impacts on the World Heritage site studied.