Mura-Drava-Danube as the world’s first ‘five-country biosphere reserve’

In news– Recently, UNESCO designated Mura-Drava-Danube (MDD) as the world’s first ‘five-country biosphere reserve’.

About the five country Biosphere reserve-

Stretching across Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Serbia, the biosphere reserve covers 700km of the Mura, Drava and Danube rivers.

The total area of the reserve, a million hectares in the so-called ‘Amazon of Europe’, makes it the largest riverine protected area on the continent.
The strategy’s aim is to revitalise 25,000 km of rivers and protect 30 percent of the European Union’s land area by 2030.
The reserve is home to floodplain forests, gravel and sand banks, river islands, oxbows and meadows.
It is home to continental Europe’s highest density of breeding white-tailed eagle (more than 150 pairs), as well as endangered species such as the little tern, black stork, otters, beavers and sturgeons.

Mura river-

It is a river in Central Europe rising in the Hohe Tauern national park of the Central Eastern Alps in Austria.
It is a tributary of the Drava and subsequently the Danube.

Drava river-

It is a river in southern Central Europe.
It is the fifth or sixth longest tributary of the Danube.
Its source is near the market town of Innichen (San Candido), in the Puster Valley of South Tyrol, Italy.

Danube river-

It is the second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia.
It flows through much of Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest into the Black Sea.
The largest cities on the river are Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade and Bratislava