After several months of observation, we finally saw the first bearded vulture born in the Vercors, the first time in at least 150 years. Indeed, the species had completely disappeared from the entire alpine arc by the hand of Man and the last trace found on the Vercors dates from the late 1870s.

It is a pleasure for the team of the Vercors Regional Natural Park engaged in the reintroduction of the species since 2010 (especially within the framework of the Life Gypconnect), for the network of volunteers and for the enthusiasts of this species.

Since the beginning of this winter, a couple had settled in the southern part of the Vercors (composed of Gerlinde (released in 2013 in the Vercors) and an unidentified male, called Onze since), south side of the Dôme of Glandasse in the commune of Laval-Aix within the National Nature Reserve of the Vercors Highlands.

It has mated many times, has carried branches suggesting a nesting - with the permanent presence of the two adults in the nest changing in a position of "the brooding bird" and the marked territorial behavior. Until May 23, no Nature Resere guard could observe the young for the first time. Active volunteers named him Ambane! Ambane finally took off on August 2 in the morning. He was monitored as long as possible, until September 21, 2022 when he had to fly to other territories.

Read here for more information! (in French)

Photos by @Olivier Teilhard

The Neuberg Nature Museum with its extensive natural history collection and housed in the Neuberg Minster was donated to the market town of Neuberg an der Mürz in 2021. The market community agreed with the Mürzer Oberland Nature Park that the latter would guarantee the museum's operation.

Now the well-preserved specimens (approx. 2,550 individual exhibits) and the existing infrastructure are to be brought into the 21st century. The focus is on targeted awareness raising on the topic of "biodiversity and climate change" in the Mürzer Oberland Nature Park and in the other Styrian nature parks. For this purpose, a comprehensive new concept (in terms of construction, content, design) was carried out in a preliminary project that has already been completed.

In future, the funding that has now been approved will turn the "Neuberg Nature Museum" into the "Styrian Nature Park House" under the title "NATURE for FUTURE". The biodiversity of the seven Styrian nature parks as well as climate change will become the central themes that run as a thread through the entire exhibition.

The existing dioramas and showcases will be partially dismantled and the numerous animal specimens will be presented in a contemporary way or sorted out (exotic species) and stored in a depot.

For this presentation, 18 adventure worlds on different habitats and cross-sectional nature themes will be created.
A recreational legal opinion and maintenance book as well as an educational guide, tour concepts and folders are also part of the implementation.

The protection and conservation of biodiversity is one of the great challenges of our time and is one of the goals and tasks of protected areas such as national and nature parks or European, nature or landscape protection areas.  Depending on the country and protection category, there are different requirements and approaches. The spectrum of activities ranges from information campaigns to bans, from environmental education offers to research projects, from species monitoring to visitor guidance measures.

One of ALPARC’s and its new regional platform ALPARC CENTR’ALPS’ goal is to make this diversity more usable.
The task of ALPARC, the network of Alpine protected areas, is to support such cooperations.  In order to ensure greater proximity to the actors and to be able to better integrate smaller structures, ALPARC has created the regional platform ALPARC CENTR'ALPS which is located in the German Nagelfluhkette Nature Park in Immenstadt i.Allgäu.

In order to discuss possible areas of future cooperation and concrete implementation possibilities, a workshop took place in Immenstadt, which  was organized by ALPARC CENTR'ALPS together with the Nagelfluhkette Nature Park. Among the participants were long-standing ALPARC members from Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well as representatives of protected areas that had not been active in the network until now.  The fact that cooperation is by no means a self-runner was an important message from ALPARC President Peter Oggier: "You are all the network, and it is your contributions that make our joint network active and successful," he told the participants right at the beginning.

Important future topics for the joint work were identified, e.g. how different stakeholder groups can be integrated into the work of the protected areas in a suitable way, how digital visitor guidance succeeds, or how results of management measures carried out can be measured and presented in an appealing way.  With regard to the important task of species monitoring, it was agreed to bring together existing data on a supra-regional basis.  The participants also agreed that much more emphasis should be put on the results of existing projects.

The National Mountain Parks and the FFCAM continue their collaboration to raise the awareness of visitors to refuges through a new communication campaign.

Now it’s time for a new medium and a different tone, but with a message that remains the same:
To make the most of your trip to the mountains and your night in a refuge, you should show the right gestures!

This campaign will be broadcast all summer long on the social networks of the National Mountain Parks and
of the FFCAM.

Watch the full video (in French, with English subtitle) or get more information in the download area (only in French available).

HEALING ALPS Intro EN

This first video will introduce you to the Interreg Alpine Space project HEALPS2 and present you the healing resources, main objectives and the approach which aims at positioning the Alpine Space as a globally attractive healing region.

Health Tourism Scenario Tool for Destination Managers

The powerful scenario tool helps destination managers to analyse and optimize the health tourism potential of their region. The tool matches the needs and expectations of guests with the natural resource profile of a destination. This allows for the creation of added value in terms of public health & regional prosperity.

HEALPS2 Online Training Toolkit for Alpine destination managers of health tourism

The Training Toolkit on Innovation Model and Tactical Toolset consists in a toolkit that provides fundamental hands-on tools and manuals, including a train-the-trainer approach, for the continuous application of the Tactical Toolset (OT2.1) and the Innovation Model (OT2.2) by all involved stakeholders for the development of high-quality tourism products.

HEALPS 2 - HEALING ALPS - Outputs

Join the HEALPS2 community of health tourism in the Alps: www.healing-alps.eu and make use of our project outputs, especially our Alpine Health Action Plan. The Alpine Health Tourism Action Plan represents a strategy for the positioning of the Alpine Space as a health tourism destination containing comprehensive innovation approaches for deriving greater values from Alpine assets as well as policy recommendations for support schemes. It also set the basis for a white paper containing policy recommendations for support schemes targeting three EU policy levels.!

The video summary of HEALPS2 final conference, hosted by Univerlecco in Lecco on 18 and 19 May , is now available.

The event was a great success, the various leading figures of the regional and international Health Tourism sector, speakers, institutional figures, guests and participants gave testimony of their experience related to topics such as the promotion of health tourism offer within specific areas of the Alpine Macro Region in Europe and the valorisation of natural resources for therapeutic purposes.

Watch the video interviews on the Univerlecco website.

 ALPARCS regional platform ALPARC CENTR‘ALPS is now present with staff at the office location in Immenstadt i.Allgäu (DE). Sabine Weizenegger is responsible for network coordination and based at the Nagelfluhkette Nature Park Centre.

Sharing the same objectives and working areas as ALPARC, ALPARC CENTR’ALPS’ decentralized structure allows to adapt approaches to the local context, guarantee concrete work on the ground, foster local initiatives and create a closer proximity with protected area managers. Moreover, this regional platform provides the opportunity for smaller protected areas and local managers of biodiversity and natural sites to get involved in the ALPARC network - with shorter distances and without language barriers.

The ALPARC CENTR'ALPS working area covers the German-speaking central Alpine region, in particular the eastern parts of Switzerland, Liechtenstein, the Bavarian Alpine region, the Austrian provinces of Vorarlberg, Tyrol, Salzburg and Upper Austria, and South Tyrol (Italy). A first project on “Protection of biodiversity in times of climate change” (funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection) is ongoing.

Ⓒ S. Weizenegger

Since 2020 Berchtesgaden National Park is cooperation partner (together with the Landesbund für Vogelschutz in Bayern e. V.) in an international project for the resettlement of the Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) into the European Alps. In 2021 the first two young vultures have been successfully released in the Klausbach Valley within the Park.

On June 9th 2022 two more vultures have been released into the wild in the same area. This project is laid out for at least 10 years. Presupposed a high enough breeding success in the european breeding stations, the release of 2 – 3 birds each year is planned. Priority objective is to finally close the gap of individuals and breeding pairs between the balkan and the alpine population. Subordinated objective is to establish breeding Bearded Vultures in the Bavarian Alps in the future.

Click here for more information and in the download area below (only in German).

Photo by © Hansruedi Weyrich

The Alps are, like many European regions, affected by soil sealing. Valleys as well as areas of low-, and mid-altitude are especially concerned by this development. Therefore, special tools from the field of Spatial Planning are needed. The mission of the OpenSpaceAlps project is to reinforce the transnational knowledge exchange in affected regions and to identify open spaces in the Alps with a spatial development below 10 or 20% of settlements or infrastructure) in order to find appropriate solutions to safeguard them for generations to come.

On 9 May 2022, ALPARC organized the French chapter of the event #Spatial planners for open spaces in the Alps, this was a space where the main results of the project OpenSpaceAlps were shared and discussed with local stakeholders.

Among other results presented, a special emphasis was made about the relevance of the OpenSpaceAlps Handbook for planners, the Alpswide mapping and the strategic recommendations. The meeting also served as an opportunity to extend the invitation to the participants to learn more about the AlpPlanNetwork and about all the tools and documents produced in the course of the project.

Find more information about the OpenSpaceAlps project here.

The first catalogue of walking trips has been created, which has as its theme the coexistence between people and wolves in the Alps. In this catalogue, seven backpacking trips through eight protected areas of the Alps are offered. This allows visitors to discover unique landscapes, where valleys, hills, high-altitude grasslands, pastures and woods showing a centuries-old story of life in dialogue with the mountains.

The existence of the wolf is a controversial theme which is oftenly debated in an emotional manner. One important question is the way to work with the wolf next door. This LIFE WolfAlps EU project and Viaggi e Miraggi, Cooperativa Sociale Onlus have launched this idea to create paths in Alpine protected areas showing the coexistence between people and wolves.

Learn more about this project: https://bit.ly/3uU13Hn or in the download area below (in Italian only)

The Lynx Trail is a long-distance trail with 11 stages through three large internationally recognised protected areas and fringes Austria's first UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site (beech forests). It goes through Austria's wild, wooded central area, repeatedly recognised by the Alpine Convention as a pilot region for its ecological network. The lynx is the symbol of the mystery of wilderness. The trail follows ecological stepping-stones created for the lynx and takes you right through its habitat. You can feel its presence. The trail can give walkers a spiritual connection with wilderness and reawakens our need for a primal connection with nature. Hikers on the trail are in the presence of something wonderful, even if they don’t see a lynx.

You can book the Lynx Trail now online.

Click on this link for more information.