The subject is of great topical interest: how can we assure a larger effectiveness of the alpine protected areas’ management measures? How can we monitor the effectiveness during the time?
An increasing number of protection authorities as ministries and local communities request to protected areas managers a veritable evaluation, in terms of effectiveness, of their management measures. Some large organisations, such as IUCN and the Council of Europe (European Diploma of Protected Areas ), dealt with this topic at the level of protected areas.

This project gets in the framework of the meetings and reflections of the working group of the Alpine Network of Protected Areas (ALPARC) concerning the topic of management measures evaluation by comparing their effectiveness at international level. Thanks to the support of the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) and the collaboration with the Swiss Parks Network , the Alpine Network of protected Areas could develop a first version of a catalogue of indicators addressed to protected areas managers. This catalogue (CIME_1), with a first selection of 25 recommended indicators, aims for being a simple and functional application tool. 

 Each one of the 25 recommended indicators is described in a factsheet where amongst other things are specified:

• The indicator’s origin;
• The unit of measure;
• Its objective;
• The comparability among different nations.

The suggested approach, which relies on methodologies standardised at international level, has been developed within exchanges and needs expressed by managers themselves during different meetings, in order to create an easy, pertinent and effective tool! In addition, a steering group, constituted by representatives of FOEN, Swiss Parks Network, Swiss Academy of Sciences , Entlebuch Biosphere Reserve and ALPARC, permitted the progress and the summary of scripts pursuant to the workshops.
CIME_1, available in English and in the 4 alpine languages, has to be tested so that it is possible to proceed on its evaluation and improvement.

Are you a manager of an alpine protected area?
Don’t hesitate to use it in your ordinary practices, as both evaluation tool and log.
Send us your opinion and remarks! They would be very useful to refine the catalogue!