The Semmering railway line and the surrounding landscape have clearly been recognized as a unified world heritage site and entered as a whole on the UNESCO World Heritage List. There was no division into a core and a buffer zone.
Bernd von Droste zu Hülshoff
Vienna (OTS) – 25 years ago, in May 1999, Bernd von Droste zu Hülshoff, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Center, presented the UNESCO World Heritage certificate “The Semmering Railway” to the mayor of the municipality in the presence of Culture Minister Elisabeth Gehrer and Lower Austria’s Governor Erwin Pröll Semmering, Hermann Düringer, representative of all mayors of the Semmering region.
On the initiative of the nature, culture and landscape protection organization “Alliance For Nature” (AFN), the Semmering Railway and its surrounding landscape were the first railway line in the world to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Semmering Railway – Cultural Landscape).
The Semmering Railway, built between 1848 and 1854 under the direction of Carl Ritter von Ghega, is also celebrating this year 170th anniversary.
Due to these two anniversaries, the “Initiative Monument Protection” association in cooperation with “Alliance For Nature” has created a 60-page special publication entitled 25 years of the “Semmering Railway with surrounding landscape” World Heritage Site published in which the initiator of this UNESCO World Heritage Site, Christian Schuhböck, describes both the Semmering Railway and its surrounding landscape as well as the internationally awarded AFN initiative “Semmering Railway World Heritage Site” and its international role model effect.
In the publication, richly illustrated with historical and contemporary images (including from the steam locomotive era), Bernd von Droste’s clarification on Hülshoff is published for the first time, which states, among other things:
“Clearly, the Semmering railway line and the surrounding landscape have been recognized as a unified world heritage site and entered as a whole on the UNESCO World Heritage List. There was no division into a core and a buffer zone.”
Accordingly, the approval, complaint and revision procedures for the Semmering Base Tunnel, which has been controversial for years and is currently under construction, were obviously carried out under the wrong aspects.
The publication is available from “Alliance For Nature” (office@AllianceForNature.at; price: € 19.00 plus shipping costs).
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Email: office@AllianceForNature.at