Project details

Bienwald is a region located by the middle Upper Rhine (Oberrhein) in the Federal State of Rhineland-Palatinate, at the French border. It is an alluvial fan landscape of the Upper Rhine plain, measuring 18.000 hectares and unique throughout Germany and Europe. The area is predominantly characterized by forest and its border areas are used agriculturally.

In 2004 the Bienwald region was approved as ‘major nature conservation project’ by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN). Within the framework of such projects, the German government promotes measures of the establishment and protection of nature and landscape elements of outstanding national importance.

During the first project phase (2004-2007) a care and development plan was being elaborated, containing concepts for the measures to be realized during the subsequent implementation phase.

The IfLS is one of four institutions commissioned by the project executing organizations – the Germersheim and Südliche Weinstraße administrative districts – to carry out the conceptualization in the first project phase. An integrated development and marketing concept for the Bienwald region, intended to flank and supplement measures of nature conservation, is being elaborated by the IfLS. This is implicitly following the objective of integrating the original field of ‘nature conservation and landscape care’ into an overall strategy encompassing further fields of regional development activity – such as

• production of agricultural and forestry quality products,
• direct marketing,
• tourism,
• resource management and renewable raw materials.

This is intended to provide prospects for the users relevant for the area (agriculture, forestry, water management and recreation) within the framework of the major nature conservation project. Thus, the overall concept and objectives of nature conservation are to be supplemented and extended by objectives of a sustainable regional development.