Use survey National Park Hohe Tauern — Expansion Kaponig

In 1999, the study Alminventar National Park Hohe Tauern Carinthia and in 2001 in the update of the Alminventar the alm economic use was presented. In this project, the same method was used to describe the alm-economic use on the expansion area (Obervellach, Kaponigtal 2005). 19 alpine pastures are located in the 19.6 km large investigation area. For modelling, the buoyancy figures for the years 1995-2005 were used for the alpine pastures. On average, 236 GUs of livestock are collected per year. In order to establish the area balance of grazing intensity (current use) for the entire protected area, the results of the 1999 survey and the first extension of 2001 have been used for the current protected area. After merging with the data from the current Kaponig extension, the result can be assessed as follows: — Large proportion of unused land: More than three quarters (77.68 percent; 32.893 ha) of the current protected area are not used for alm-economic purposes. — Low proportion of sheep pasture: Just over one-tenth of the protected area (10.46 percent; 4.387 ha) is used as extensive sheep pasture. — Low proportion of (very) intensively used cattle pasture: Areas grazed by cattle or horses occupy 11.76 percent of the study area. It dominates extensive and moderately intensive grazing areas (9.29 percent; 3.895 ha), only about 2.5 percent of the total protected area is grazed intensively to very intensively (1 039 ha). — Vanishingly small proportion of mowing surfaces: The 44 hectares currently mowed are located exclusively in the outer zone.