The 6th edition of the international event Youth at the Top takes place from July 16th– September 30th, 2020. It is organized through local events that take place simultaneously in different countries across the Alps and Carpathians. It has a highly symbolic dimension as hundreds of young people go out and experience nature on a specific day with the option of an overnight stay in the mountains. Some events especially in France, Austria and Italy have already been organised, some more events will take place in the weeks to come.

This project is a unique opportunity for youth to get in touch with mountains and nature in a creative and playful way at a local level: Drawing, building, playing theatre and experiencing the environment with all senses allow for discovery, adventure, self-centered learning and participative interaction. This way young people (re)discover nature and connect to their mountain heritage. At the same time, the international theme "Alpine Fauna and climate change" as well as tools like "The Alps in my Backpack" promote the international framing, helping youngsters to experience the dimension of mountain regions and their connectedness regardless of any national borders. At present around 30 events over the Alpine arc and Carpathians have been registered and will organise pedagogical activities around the common theme "alpine fauna and climate change". Protected areas, organizations, youth associations, local professionals, and refuges from all over the Alps and the Carpathians are invited to take part in this international event .

Youth at the Top is for all kinds of young people from 6 to 25 years old. Young people living in the Alpine and Carpathians valleys are highly encouraged to get involved. Due to the Corona crisis, the project will take place on a longer time period, from July 16th until September 30ht,allowing all local organisation to respect national sanitary requirements.

The project is financed by the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), the Principality of Monaco and the French Agency for Territorial Cohesian (ANCT).

Orchard meadows, like they occur for example in the Regional Nature Park Massif des Bauges, can be key elements when building a coherent and well-designed Green Infrastructure (GI) network. Often located in peri urban areas, they can constitute an interesting linking element between GI elements in cities and in rural areas. The Alpine Space LUIGI project will analyse the joint benefits deriving from these ecosystems, but also other GI elements, also highlighting their potential for a sustainable economic development. Project partners will analyse value-chains for goods and services and study related business models to frame and spread financial and policy instruments supporting innovative management practices for such GI elements. Based on harmonised procedures, representative cities, metropolitan and rural areas from 6 alpine countries are covered.

Currently the projects pilot sites are identified where ecosystem services delivered by GI elements will be studied in detail, an analysis that will also serve to analyse the value chains of the services and the corresponding business models. In cooperation with EUSALP AG7 the LUIGI PP already identified a series of innovative business models for the initiative “Green Infrastructure (GI) goes Business” aiming to award a “Green Infrastructure Business Award 2020”.

ALPARC has the lead on actions aiming at capitalising on project results and dissemination knowledge and experience in a large network of stakeholders from the operative level as well as political decision makers.

Project Homepage: https://www.alpine-space.eu/projects/luigi/en/home

ALPARC is currently working on a project dealing with the future of alpine protected areas at the horizon 2030. The goal is to identify gaps in the system of spatial protection, both concerning its representativity of wildlife and biodiversity and its spatial distribution and to recommend measures to allow alpine protected areas to become ready for the challenges of a changing world and changing society.

The Alps are a highly diverse system of landscapes and ecological processes, some of which have arisen from their geological, climatological and biological evolution, and parts of which have been shaped by hundreds of years of human habitation and land-use. Today´s Alps are cultural landscapes, especially in the lower regions, but human impact is felt even at high elevations. They are not, then, wilderness areas in the sense of primary nature, untouched by human activity. Nevertheless, they are in some ways also “wild” places. Places where natural spaces have been transformed, but where ecological processes can still occur without much anthropological influence. Such areas are often included in today’s protected areas.

Threats to natural spaces and protected areas in the Alps occur from many human induced sources: There are, on the one hand, direct and immediate threats, such as the growth in leisure activities that may have negative impacts on wildlife and biologically diverse ecosystems, and the progressive fragmentation of landscapes by the construction of infrastructure, land use change (e.g. the abandonment of traditional farming practices that foster biodiversity) and intensive use of natural resources.
On the other hand, alpine protected areas are more and more exposed to threats presented by climate change, which brings with it changes in the distribution of vegetation and wildlife, as well as in meteorological patterns.

All this, and especially land fragmentation, result in shrinking habitats for wildlife. Without protection and restoration, certain habitat types may be lost altogether, while others are turned into isolated islands that do not allow the migration of species between habitat patches.

An evolution of protected area policy, management and perspectives are needed for the Alps considering all these features. Modern management tools and methods integrate adequate governance systems and participative approaches involving the local  population. For this reason, a pilot region – the transboundary nature park (Bavaria/D/Vorarlberg/AT) analyses this issue in the course of the project. Beside a profound analysis of the current situation, scenarios for the future are built which will be shown in an extensive report, complementary maps and a video clip. An international peer group is accompanying the project since its start in 2018. Proposals and recommendations will be summarized in a report and submitted to the Alpine Conference by the end of the year. The project is supported by the German Ministry of the Environment (BMU).

OpenSpaceAlps is one of fifteen projects approved in the frame of Call 4 of the Interreg Alpine Space programme. It brings together seven partners from Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia to work on the topic of near-natural open spaces in the core Alpine and EUSALP areas. 
The main objective of OpenSpaceAlps is to foster sustainable development of the Alpine area by contributing to the safeguarding of open spaces featuring environmental and natural values. In the valleys, these open spaces are decreasing due to e.g. development of settlements and transport related areas, whereas in the higher altitudes they are being dissected by tourism, forestry and agriculture related infrastructures. The path taken is to initiate and facilitate processes towards the adoption of new spatial planning approaches in the alpine countries as well as to promote multilevel, transnational spatial governance.

First steps of the project having been started 8 months ago gathered alpine planning instruments in the different countries, a summary of all project results related to former INTERREG or other projects concerning the topic of natural spaces, ecological connectivity and the role of protected areas as back-bones and biodiversity reservoirs for the alpine space.
Next steps involve the analysis of governance approaches of planning strategies in pilot areas, an alps wide mapping of open spaces where protected areas of all categories are occupying an important place and a concept for a network of spatial planning institutions allowing an integrated approach of spatial planning in the Alps considering human activities and the needs of nature and ecology.
Several parks of the ALPARC network are directly or indirectly involved in different work-packages of the project. In this sense, this new project is an excellent continuation and practical implementation for the results of the work of the last 15 years concerning ecological connectivity.

The LeadPartner of this project is the spatial planning agency of Salzburg (A). ALPARC is partner and workpackage leader dealing with the international dimension of the project including governance aspects, ecological connectivity concepts and biodiversity protection strategies within alps-wide spatial planning approaches. The project will end by Summer 2022. ALPARC is supported by the German Ministry (BMU) for this project.

ALPARC is officially taking part to the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2021 in Marseille (FR), next January 7th - 15th, in cooperation with the Swiss National Park.
The congress has been postponed from June 2020 to January 2021 due to the Corona crisis.

After the first selection phase, the IUCN responded to our application asking us to join forces with the Swiss National Park in our activities during the Congress. This gives us the opportunity to closely cooperate with the oldest national park in the Alps and central Europe towards the common goal of fostering intra-generational discussions.

In fact, the concept consists in fostering a dialogue between young professionals and other experts on the role of protected areas in the mitigation of the effects of climate change.  In this context young professionals from all over the Alps will be invited to a preparatory workshop in Munich in October 2020.

Ecological connectivity, biodiversity conservation and the safeguard of mountainous ecosystem services in view of climate change will be the central topics of the slot that ALPARC will have during the IUCN World Conservation Congress. For this objective, the network will not only collaborate with various protected areas but also other stakeholders, such as the EUSALP action group 7, in order to recommend solutions to the current challenges. 

More information and the exact date of the workshop will follow soon.

Bolzano will be the location for the Matchmaking Workshop of the Alpine Climate Board next 30th June and 1st of July, to take further steps towards the implementation of the Alpine Climate Target System 2050; and of the Climate Communication Conference by ALPACA, an initiative of CIPRA International, Alliance in the Alps and the Alpine Town of the Year Association to strengthen the transregional exchange of knowledge and experience.

An introduction to the thematic of climate change and its impact on alpine protected areas

Klimawandel und alpine Schutzbebiete - Rolle und Aktionen

An introduction to the thematic of climate change and its impact on alpine protected areas

Changement climatique et espaces protégés alpins - rôle et actions

En hiver, les Alpes sont de plus en plus fréquentées par les pratiquants du ski de randonnée, du free-riding et des raquettes. Cela engendre un dérangement de la faune sauvage: le tétra-lyre, pour économiser son énergie, passe le plus clair de l'hiver dans un creux dans la neige, ce qui le protège aussi des prédateurs; cet hiver, à vous de choisir le bon tracé!

Pour en savoir plus sur l'initiative: www.bepartofthemountain.org/fr

Dear colleagues,

After the decision taken by the French Government over the COVID-19 matter, we decided that it was preferable to keep our offices in Chambery closed to protect our team. We will be working on our projects as usual, from home, and will still be available on our emails and mobile phones. Don't hesitate to write to : info@alparc.org for any matter. Please note that our regular office phone is not working.

Take care of yourself and have a nice day!

The ALPARC Team