Christian Schuhböck became involved in the protection of the natural and manmade heritage in Europe while a student when he founded the organisation ALLIANCE FOR NATURE, an organisation for the protection of natural and cultural sites. He has been its Secretary General ever since. In 1988/89, he organised the initiative "Rettet das Dorfertal" in order to preserve the Eastern Alps from the construction of a very large storage power station and at the same time enable the creation of the Hohe Tauern National Park. For this he was awarded with the Austrian State’s Prize for the Protection of the Environment.
Mr. Schuhböck is also responsible for the campaign against the construction of the Donau Power Plant near Hainburg and in favour of the Donau Auen National Park east of Vienna, activities for which he was awarded with the Environment Prize of Lower Austria. Since 1990, Mr. Schuhböck has been working in connection with the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the Cultural and Natural World Heritage, and he has substantially contributed to Austria’s compliance with this Convention.
In 1998, Christian Schuhböck was responsible for Semmeringbahn and its landscape being listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Semmeringbahn, the first high mountain train in the world, was at the time threatened by impending closure and today it is considered to be one of Austria’s most important heritage sites, saved and restored to form an important element of the European identity. It is the first railway internationally to have received this status.
In 2000, Christian Schuhböck also succeeded in having the Wachau, one of Europe’s most beautiful river landscapes, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here, one of the last free flowing parts of the upper Danube River, as well as unique cultural monuments and historically important landscape structures are located. Acting almost alone, Christian Schuhböck succeeded in having the two above-mentioned sites listed as World Heritage, and thus putting these previously endangered areas and monuments under the protection of the international community.
With Mr. Schuhböck’s help, the Aletsch Glacier in the Bernese Alps was, in 2001, declared a Natural World Heritage. In 2000/2001, he launched the initiative "World Heritage Donau-March-Thaya-Auen", aiming to preserve this unique middle-European woodland area which is found at the border of Austria, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. This area too was under threat from large-scale industrial interventions.
The initiatives launched by Christian Schuhböck serve as examples throughout the world. The Darjeeling-Himalaya-Railroad in India was declared, in 1999, a Railway of World Heritage, while the cultural river landscape of the Middle Rhine is underway to be entered into the World Heritage List.