The Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention is organizing the “We are Alps “ journalist tour:  an annual event for a group of journalists who will be crossing the Alps in a week-long excursion.

The upcoming edition will take place from the 25th June to the 2nd July 2017 and will be focused on the topic of WATER IN THE ALPS.

Interested journalists are invited to apply by the deadline on the 30th of April 2017.

The small group of journalists taking part in the event will be using sustainable means of transport (trains, buses, boats, bicycles) on a route from Vienna to Monaco.

During the excursion, the group will have the chance to be involved in different activities related to the topic of this year, notably meeting actors of flagship projects for innovative water management and many other people from the alps (experts, representatives of the civil society, of different economic sectors and different administrative levels, business people, workers, farmers and politicians). The event is an occasion to raise awareness on the challenges and opportunities of the Alpine area with a specific focus on water. 

For further information about the event, the selection procedure and other details, please visit the following link: http://www.alpconv.org/en/activities/wearealps/WeareAlps2017/default.html

In the French Alps, a new project is underway to bring mountains closer to the people. The mountain refuge of Lac du Pavé in the Oisans massif, which is a part of the Ecrins National Park, is going to be renovated, but instead of building it directly in the mountains away from the eyes of the public, the French federation of Alpine clubs, National syndicate of refuge keepers and the local community have chosen a more original approach: they will first build it in the city centre of Grenoble, before moving it to its permanent position at the Lac du Pavé in the Ecrins.

The refuge is scheduled to be installed in Grenoble in the spring of 2019 for a period of two to three months, and it will offer its visitors the complete experience of spending a night amongst the peaks. In addition, conferences and events touching various aspects of mountains and mountaineering will be organised. The project, coordinated by the Syndicat des gardiens de refuge and Coordination montagne, will kick off at the end of June. Different stakeholders from the fields of mountaineering and tourism are welcome to participate.

For more information on the project, go here (article in French).

Living conditions in rural areas have changed radically over the past few decades. Many regions manifest a tendency towards depopulation. For women in particular, there is a lack of sufficient means to earn a living. Infrastructure is poor, many learning opportunities such as childcare or schooling are absent. And right-wing populists happen to be especially successful in rural areas when it comes to vote catching.

At the Alpine Conference, we debate structural policies, value creation and cosmopolitanism with experts, decision makers and members of the public. We are looking forward to a cross-national and transdisciplinary exchange on the topic of "Life and Economic Activity in Rural Areas".

https://gbw.at/oesterreich/us/alpentagung/

Organizer: Grüne Bildungswerkstatt Vorarlberg

Mountain Wilderness has recently launched the contest "Changer d'approche". The aim of the contest is to promote soft mobility among mountain visitors.

The participants are invited to realize an outing in the mountains without a car and using soft mobility means of transportation. Every kind of outing is allowed, no matter of the level of difficulty. The participants are also asked to report about their experience with pictures, video and practical information.

The deadline to apply for the contest and submitting all the materials documenting the outing is 30th September 2017.

A panel will then evaluate the different stories of the outings realized by the participants and the best ones will be awarded with a prize.

For further info visit the website of the contest here.

The GaYA project aims to increase the quality of democratic processes in the Alpine space by enhancing the inclusion of young people. The first stage of the project focused on an analysis of the situation of participatory democracy and youth participation in the Alpine regions and municipalities. With the support of all the partners, the Institute of Federalism at EURAC carried out a comparative study, including a questionnaire addressed to the Alpine regions (42 out of 48 regions answered) and interviews with 31 cities, towns and rural municipalities. 

A report with the results of this analysis will be presented in a conclusive workshop of the first stage in Bolzano (Italy) on 29th June. During the workshop it will be possible to discuss youth participation, its challenges and good practices in different policy fields with practitioners from different horizons. Please find the programme and the GaYA poster below.

If you are interested in participating in the conference, please contact EURAC at gaya@eurac.edu before June 20. 

Following the conference, the comparative report will be published and will be available in all Alpine languages by Autumn 2017.

Please, note that we are still searching for official observers who would like to follow more closely the work on the project, notably the upcoming pilot stage. If you are interested, please feel free to contact us at: info@alparc.org

Comunità Montana di Valle Camonica and Parco dell’Adamello, together with the protected areas of the “Rete Natura di Valle Camonica” (“Nature Network of Valle Camonica”) and in collaboration with the Cultural District of Valle Camonica are organizing the 6th edition of “Fiera della Sostenibilità della Natura Alpina” (“Exhibition of Sustainability of the Alpine Nature”).

The event will take place in different locations in Valle Camonica during the month of June 2017. 

In line with the previous editions of the exhibition, sustainability is going to be the keyword of the events that will explore the concept and its three components: environment, society, economy.

The 6th edition of the Exhibition will be focused on two main specific topics:

• The submission of a nomination proposal for Valle Camonica and Alto Sebino as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (MaB Programme)
• The celebration of the 200 years from the invention of the bicycle, the sustainable transportation par excellence that is in continuous evolution and improvement

The Exhibition is about culture, celebration, games, sports, hobbies. All these elements are crucial to promote in our societies values such as friendship, cooperation, solidarity and achieve a sustainable future.

For further information about the programme visit the website of the exhibition here (it).

Wolf populations have been thriving in central Europe since the 1970s due to protection laws and hunting regulations. As result of this protection, the wolf started to settle down again (2016) in Austria for the first time in more than 120 years.  However, it is not always easy for inhabitants to live with this large carnivore. Alpine landscape users, such as those involved in tourism, animal husbandry, agriculture, forestry and hunting were fearful and uncertain about the wolf’s return, especially due to incidents of sheep killings near the Sölktäler Nature Park (AT) in 2015. Overall, the presence of the wolf in Alps can have significant economic and social impacts for Alpine populations who depend on the landscape for their livelihoods. 

From May 17^th- 18^th, 2017, the international conference ‘The Wolf in Alpine Landscape’ was held in Sölktäler Nature Park, Austria. The goal of this conference was to bring together experts from the Alps and Carpathians to give clear and objective information on the wolf and to discuss the challenges that came with its return for Alpine landscape users. Open-discussion sessions were a key part of this conference in order address the apprehensions expressed by Alpine populations. The international conference, which had over 100 participants, created space for an objective process of problem solving to take form and debuted with the exhibition ‘The Comeback of the Wolf’. Some key events from the two-day conference included: 

• roundtable discussions in the presence of experts and local inhabitants, 
• informational sessions on the topics of ‘agriculture and Alpine husbandry’ and ‘forestry and hunting’ with about 70 farmers, foresters and hunters so that they could share their position and experiences, and
• the historical excursion and seminar ‘Historical Facts about the Wolves in the Neidere Tauren Region’, which welcomed about 30 participants.

Overall, constructive debates where held on a variety of topics such as the possibility of relaxing wolf protection statuses and the need for action from the political realm to maintain the cultivation of the Alps to prevent severe consequences on Alpine culture, food production quality, biodiversity, tradition and landscape. Moreover, there is a need for all populations, including urban, to become aware of the return of the wolf and to take responsibility for the potential monetary and psychological impacts that it can have on Alpine landscape users. 

The event was co-organized by ALPARC and the Sölktäler Nature Park.

The complete report of the international conference can be downloaded below. 

On the occasion of the Day of the Alpine Convention, we invite you to the opening of photography exhibition "Obiettivo fauna nel parco naturale delle Prealpi Giulie" on Friday, May 26^th 2017 at 18h at the Slovene Alpine Museum in Mojstrana (SI). The exhibition will present the work of Paolo Da Pozzo and Gabriele Bano.

 From 19-21 May 2017 Interpret Europe network will meet for their Spring Event 'Crossing Borders' in Prague to discuss how we can work more closely together, and how we can improve our skills in giving a deeper meaning to heritage all across Europe.
You can find introductions to all workshops and presentations at Parallel sessions on their website. You can also find there the event programme including information on our keynote speakers and study visits, the event venue and our Market of Ideas.   
        
Visit their Spring Event pages and if you need more information, or contact springevent@interpret-europe.net.

   
 

The Wolf in the alpine cultural landscape – chances and challenges

The presence of the wolf in Alps over the past twenty years is a reality which had important effects in ecological and socio-economic contexts.

Since the first sightings of the wolf in the early 90s, the Piedmont Region has developed a monitoring and research program on the wolf natural re-colonization of the Alps to collect the technical data necessary for the management of this situation and its impact on economic activities.

The International Conference will take place on the 16^th-18^th of May in Sölk, Sölktäler Nature Park (Styria, Austria) and will be structured as it follows:

 For more information about : the programme, registrations or pratical information, please click on this link. 

The event is co-organised by SÖLKTÄLER NATURE PARK and ALPARC.

The report of the fourth AlpWeek, held in October 2016 in Grassau (D), has been published. The focus of the AlpWeek was on demography, culture and quality of life. 

Furthermore, in the frame of the event a video titled “What about cooperation in the Alps?”  has been made. Via several interviews with key actors involved in the Alps-wide cooperation,  the video presents how the Alpine cooperation works,  and identifies the actors involved as well as the challenges and opportunities. The video is available in English and in all Alpine languages on the AlpWeek Youtube channel.

ALPARC had a strong presence through its actions: in the frame of the Alpine Convention’s work group for ecological connectivity, two new pilot regions were nominated, Achental (D) and Mont-Blanc Ecoregion (FR), a workshop dedicated to the pilot regions: “Development of a short- to mid-term strategy for the pilot regions”, was organised, and a cooperation memorandum was signed between ALPARC, DANUBEPARKS (Danube network of protected areas) and CNPA (network of protected areas of the Carpathians).

To better promote the project and ecological connectivity, three videos have been made; they’re available on our YouTube channel.

To read the complete report of the AlpWeek 2016, click here.

Verba Alpina is an international project, directed by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, which aims to assemble dialectal words from official Alpine languages (French, Italian, German, Slovene and Romansh), specific to the Alpine regions regardless of political borders. It was launched in October 2014 and it lasts until the end of September 2017, with the possibility of continuation.

The vocabulary concerned touches mostly natural and cultural heritage, traditional craftsman techniques and ways of life; anyone can register and contribute words from their dialect. The main output of the project is an online platform, complete with database, interactive cartography, scientific articles and methodology. In this way, the data from existing linguistic atlases can be made easily available to the public in an improved, coherent and multidimensional form.

The project is supported by numerous partners, and is mostly intended for the scientific public, but is also easily understandable by the general public thanks to the interactive map.

You can find out more about the project here.