Buisiness partners

Partnership initiatives among local businesses

The certificate "biosphere reserve" given by UNESCO acknowledges that, up to now, people in the Rhön lived in harmony with nature. Businesses partners are very proud of this acknowledgement. They intend to contribute to the future conservation and careful development of this valuable cultural landscape. Partnership initiatives among local businesses in the Rhön biosphere reserve as a "model region" try to prove that the harmonisation of economy and nature is possible and that only this integration leads to success. Of course also in the Rhön, businesses cannot survive without economic success. In order to maintain the whole cultural landscape, special effort is needed as, for instance, the cooperation among businesses from agriculture, forestry, processing, marketing, crafts, gastronomy, environmental interpretation and visitor services.

 The necessity of gentle economic activities can be shown by successful examples. Both visitors and consumers who learn this connection will see the Rhön from a different perspective and will become actively involved in the protection of the "Land of open expanses".

Partnership initiatives among businesses significantly contribute to the maintenance and further development of the Rhön biosphere reserve. Within their businesses they comply with a set of guidelines.

 Partnership initiatives among businesses of the biosphere reserve...

•  Comply to a special extend with the aims of UNESCO to follow environmentally friendly economic activities,
• Maintain and develop an attractive landscape for recreation,
• Place emphasis on economic activities in harmony with nature,
• Contribute to a better understanding between man and nature,
• Develop joint initiatives and support themselves respectively,
•  Convert disadvantages into advantages of location,
• Produce high quality products and nutrition in an environmentally friendly manner,
•  Contribute to the regional added value,
•  Keep and generate new employment, and
•  Inform visitors about the divers and characteristic structures of the Rhön biosphere reserve. 

In doing so, these businesses contribute to the development and further spread of an independent and distinctive profile of the Rhön UNESCO-biosphere reserve which serves as a model region for the long-term reconciliation of nature, man and culture.

•  These guidelines are further concretised for the different sectors: Agriculture
•  Gastronomy
•  Processing
• Regional marketing
• Forestry
• Services
• Crafts