Assessment of forest wilderness in Kalkalpen National Park

In order to illustrate the state and development of forest wilderness in Kalkalpen National Park and thus also the effectiveness of national parks, we analysed various inventory data to assess the four different aspects of wilderness: naturalness, undisturbedness, undevelopedness and scale. Naturalness is proven by an analysis of hemeroby. The average hemeroby value of the park's forest is 7.2 on a scale form 1 (artificial) to 9 (natural). High density of the white-backed woodpecker population (up to 2.9 territories per 100 ha) and the occurrence of endangered relic beetles confirm high naturalness. Undisturbedness is proven by an increase in hemeroby development (+0.19) and by the forest age from a historical viewpoint (> 50% of the forest area is older than 160 years). An evaluation of forest road density measures the quality of undevelopedness. The park's 16 800 ha of forest constitute an area large and sufficient enough for ensuring functioning natural processes. Adding all these factors together, a rather high state of forest wilderness can be ascertained, which confirms the effectiveness of the national park management.