Feeling for Nature - with hearts and heads

Active environmental education is the key to a responsible attitude in our dealings with nature, culture and the landscape. Experience with the Regio Plus projects shows that both local residents and visitors to the region have a strong need to experience the natural world and to relax there but also to be informed through environmental education. The themed trails created to date cannot satisfy these needs alone. What is required is a comprehensive offering for the various target groups combining experience, information and emotion.
In collaboration with the Werdenberg School of Forestry and the Environment and the Werdenberg Nature Park, the community of Grabs has developed a corresponding educational and information offering and a competence platform in the field.
On the basis of the two Regio Plus projects "Werdenberg Personality" and "Toggenburg on the Move", the two regions want to establish a nature park with a total area of 500 km². Regional nature parks are areas that are special in terms of their natural, scenic and cultural characteristics. The aim is to make use of the nature park to maintain and preserve these assets and make them available for use by the local people and the tourist trade. This can take the form of "Klangwelt Toggenburg" for the promotion of local culture and typical music, the development and marketing of new regional products in agriculture, forestry and the timber industry, renaturing areas like the Saxerriet project which have great ecological importance as part of the biotope network in the valley, landscape amelioration projects like Bürgerwingert in Wartau (where the ancient cultural landscape has been restored for people to experience), or integrated amenities for recreation in the natural environment as in the case of the Natural Hazard Trail, the Gorge Trail or the Sound Trail.
The actors in the planned nature park will be able to build on these experiences, develop them further and network them, with new initiatives and projects also to be developed and implemented, e.g. in the field of renewable energy or environmental protection.
In this context the park will serve as a platform for communication, co-ordination and co-operation. In the framework of the discussion and working process in numerous working groups, the local people are playing an active part in addressing the needs of their region, helping to find solutions and thus strengthening their sense of identity and awareness for sustainable development in the region.

tree-memory<br/>Werdenberg