In collaboration with the Klima Biennale Wien, Katja Schechtner and Alex Putzer present the Declaration of the Rights of Citizen Danube.

Cities are biodiversity hotspots – a joint creation of humans and non-human nature. As a result, half of Austria’s animal and plant species can be found in Vienna today, more than forty percent of all dragonfly species live on the Danube Island alone. Meanwhile, an increasing number of cities are recognizing the rights of urban nature. The Seine has been an honorary citizen of Paris since 2025; in Mexico City, all of nature has enjoyed civil rights since 2017; in Berlin, algorithms have been planning the “Green Wave” for insects since 2023; and Amsterdam is currently testing a “City Council of Things”. 

And in Vienna? There, the Danube has shaped the city since its founding. It is far more than a backdrop, a transportation artery, or a recreational area. The river is an urban ecosystem that shapes its human and non-human inhabitants and is shaped by them: “We demand civil rights for the Danube: Citizen Danube. City Council Member Danube. Mayor Danube.”

The VIENNA DESIGN WEEK is presenting this project as part of DONAURAUM, a group of projects that explore the river that defines Vienna.

The initiative was launched as part of the Klima Biennale Wien. It is intended to serve as the starting point for a long-term process in which the rights of the Danube are not only articulated and explored artistically, but also actually secured.
 

Talk “Citizen Danube – City, Nature, Rights”: Sat 3.10., 1.30pm 

Discussion on the rights of urban nature with Katja Schechtner and Alex Putzer (Citizen Nature), Sithara Pathirana (Klima Biennale Wien), Camilla Haake (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights), and Wolfgang Gruel (Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart)