Austrian minister Niki Berlakovich and Hungarian environment minister Imre Szabò launching the “NATURATHLON 2009 – nature without frontiers”

Subheading: Memorandum on the conservation and preservation of the European Green Belt sets off on a journey from the pan-European picnic area to Strasbourg

Sopron/Bonn/Vienna, 19. August 2009: In the morning of the official celebrations commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain, 24 international athletes from six countries were setting off on the “NATURATHLON 2009 – nature without frontiers” from the pan-European picnic area. At 08.00 the Austrian environment minister Niki Berlakovich and his Hungarian counterpart Imre Szabò gave the start signal together with the Burgenland Landtag president Walter Prior, the president of the German Nature Conservation Agency (BfN) Beate Jessel and Georg Rebernig, managing director of Umweltbundesamt (Environment Agency Austria). From the ministers, the NATURATHLON athletes received a memorandum on the conservation and preservation of the international Green Belt which they will hand over to the European Parliament in Strasbourg at the end of the 12-day tour.

In their speech the environment ministers Niki Berlakovich and Imre Szabò unanimously emphasised the importance of the European Green Belt for international nature conservation. They specifically referred to the national park Neusiedlersee-Seewinkel/Fertö-Hanság, established in 1993, as a successful example of cross-border cooperation in nature conservation.

Pictures of the start of the NATURATHLON 2009 will be available for viewing after 12:30 at http://www.umweltbundesamt.at/naturathlon.

Further information
http://www.naturathlon.eu
Franz-August Emde, Federal Nature Conservation Agency Press Office,
mobile +49 172/202 70 81
Ingeborg Zechmann, Umweltbundesamt Press Office,
mobile +43 664/611 90 94