An International workshop on defining transboundary conservation principles, organised by IUCN WCPA Transboundary Conservation Specialist Group with generous support of a local host, Thayatal National Park, will be held on 16-18 October 2013 in the Austrian National Park. The workshop is being organised within the framework of a project ‘Revision of the IUCN WCPA Best Practice Guideline on Transboundary Conservation’, funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) through the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), the MAVA Foundation, and IUCN WCPA. Best Practice Protected Area Guideline Series is one of the most known and valued publication series produced by IUCN WCPA.

The workshop will be an opportunity to discuss and define current transboundary conservation principles, having in mind rapid development of transboundary conservation practice at global level and a variety of objectives underpinning these processes. The workshop will gather prominent experts in transboundary conservation and it will be a platform for debating most critical issues on the given topic, and with the main objective to determine the most essential subjects to be elaborated in the future guideline and to agree on the process of the publication’s development. The workshop participants will also have an opportunity to learn about Thayatal National Park-Podyjí National Park transboundary protected area (TBPA) and visit the Czech part of the TBPA.

The new publication intends to capture developments in transboundary conservation field since the original guidance was published in 2001, partially revise contents of the current guideline, and offer updates and additional guidance. It is planned to launch the new guideline during the IUCN World Parks Congress in Sydney in November 2014.