Beitrag zur Kenntnis des FFH-Lebensraumtyps 5130 – Wacholderformationen auf Heiden oder Kalk-Grasland und Konsequenzen für das österreichische Schutzgebietssystem Natura 2000

In lower altitudes of Austria, Juniperus communis formations of habitat type 5130 of Annex I of the Habitats Directive are only very rarely preserved relicts of former extensive grazing and are nowadays largely forested or have disappeared for other reasons. Only seven currently existing Natura 2000 sites mention and protect this habitat in the total extent of less than 15 ha indicated nationwide, covering only a small fraction of the occurrences that are completely insufficiently known even 25 years after Austria‘s accession to the EU. FFH habitat type mapping carried out in recent years (in particular Nadler & Haug 2018b) shows that there is also a second, even more vital focus of type occurrences in the Alpine region, namely in the high montane to subalpine altitudinal zones with juniper in its low-growing high altitude form (Subspecies nana according to Austrian terminology). Although there have always been sufficient interpretation aids identifying these high altitude occurrences, they have so far not been taken into account in the reporting system according to Article 17 of the Habitats Directive nor in the designation of Natura 2000 protected areas for habitat type 5130. This overview is intended to highlight this problem and improve the level of information.

There is a need for official action with regard to the inclusion of LRT 5130 as a protected property in existing Natura 2000 sites, with regard to the designation of significantly larger areas in existing protected areas and with regard to Natura 2000 renominations to be made in high altitude areas; all this has to be connected with efforts to improve the conservation status of this protected property, which must be significantly intensified.

The most important causes of endangerment are the abandonment of grassland use and eutrophication, which accelerates the succession to forest, on the one hand, and large-scale clearing in the form of woodland and alpine pasture milling, on the other.