The original features of Southern Transdanubia have largely been preserved, and people today can and do a lot to protect their natural environment. The Danube-Dráva National Park on close to 50 thousand hectares guards valuable aquatic habitats, river branches, mortlakes, flood plain forests and marshlands. The areea around these stretches of the two rivers has survived in an almost natural state and preserved a riches that is by now rarely found in Europe. The gallery forests fringing the rivers and the backwaters offer protected habitats for many rare bird species. At Gemenc and Béda-Karapancsa on the Danube, kingfishers, black storks and little egrets nest.

These two areas are also the richest habitats in Europe for birds of prey, such as the saker and the white-tailed eagle. Both forests make excellent hunting areas, noted worldwide for the trophied big game, the red deer and the fallow deer.

The part of the National Park alongside the Dráva is also noted for its gallery forests, backwaters and marshlands. A few Slavonian oaks tower over the forests with their vast foliage. Birdlife is especially rich here. The colonies of bank swallows nesting on the high banks present a unique sight. A noted botanical treasure of the region is the juniper grove at Barcs.

Within the Danube-Dráva National Park, three landscape protection areas - the Eastern Mecsek, Boronka and Zselic - and twenty-two nature conservation areas, among them Szársomlyó, the only habitat of the Hungarian colchicum, as well as several locally protected valuable spots attract visitors.

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