Last weekend I stumbled over Perchtoldsdorf Heath - in local dialect this would be Petersdorfer Haad (but in this case the standard language version of Perchtoldsdorfer Heide already seems to be the one used mainly, nowadays).
Yes I admit to it, I already had heard of its existence but never really bothered to go there, but I will do so frequently in the future because this little nature reserve really is a jewel.
It is hidden behind the suburb of Perchtoldsdorf, just a couple of hundreds of metres beyond the city limits of Vienna, endangered from the east by the locals going walkies with their dogs and from the west by mountain bikers recklessly driving through the heath instead of using the mountain bike trail.
The bikers destroy the heath physically, the dogs do so by overfertilising it with their well-you-know-what (as the heath vegetation needs poor soil low on nitrates), and further they enjoy hunting or at least disturbing the Ziesel (genus Spermophilus, very rare and close to extinction). It took me over an hour to mount this hill which only has 250 metres difference in height above sea level to offer and probably 1.000 metres along the road - it took me that long to enjoy the sight of this lovely heath on the periphery of a megacity. On signs put up there it says that at New Year's Eve tons of litter are left on the heath each year by locals celebrating up there, and burning fireworks. Volunteers - also locals - regularly collect it the day after.
What a crime to do this all to this lovely landscape.
And even though there seems to be a movement to try and protect it from further destruction it really will be difficult to achieve this, in a region where already around two million people live, numbers still increasing. It is easier for Lobau to survive because Lobau is so much bigger and protected by national park laws; but this one here, the Petersdorfer Haad, really is tiny - its small size makes it very vulnerable indeed.
