La Rete delle Aree Protette Alpine
The second international meeting of the pilot regions which proceeded in Dobbiaco/Toblach on April 22, 2010 bore its fruits. Indeed, the pilot regions adopted a common tool, entitled JECAMI (Joint Ecological Continuum Analysing and Mapping Initiative-Web services).
This instrument is proposed by the Swiss National Park in collaboration with the Arinas company;
The benefits of this initiative are numerous, indeed, it will make it possible the Pilot regions to apply a strategy harmonized in order to analyze the situation of ecological connectivity.
The pilot regions will be able to identify the ideal and priority surface to establish future measures of connectivity, then to make use of it like support of communication on Internet for the various users, and authorities.
This easily accessible tool will bring a visibility of connectivity. It will be possible to visualize at the same time the habitats of the species and the results of connectivity.
Econnect awaited an effective tool to incorporate and to combine the space results of the project and a facilitated access of all the stakeholders concerned, it’s done!
Ruedi Haller from the Swiss National Park presents the cartographic tool JECAMI
http://www.alparc.org/the-alparc-network/a-spatial-network/project-econnect
Le projet ALPENCOM s’est officiellement clôturé le 15 février 2008, mais les partenaires de ce projet Interreg IIIB Alpine Space poursuivent maintenant dans le cadre du « Groupe de Travail Communication » le travail initié durant ce projet pilote.
Le projet ALPENCOM visait d’une part à soutenir la communication entre les espaces protégés et d’autre part à développer la communication commune des espaces protégés des Alpes envers le grand public ; il a permis d’en poser les bases.
Le Groupe de Travail « Communication » d’ALPARC s’est réuni les 3 et 4 juin à Sand in Taufers, dans le Parc naturel Rieserferner-Ahrn (Haut-Adige, Italie). Depuis, le groupe a contribué par exemple à la réalisation d’un nouveau dépliant commun pour les espaces protégés alpins et encadré la mise en place de la visite virtuelle des espaces protégés sur Internet.
La restitution officielle du projet a lieu quant à elle à l’occasion de l’ Assemblée Générale d’ALPARC du 8 au 10 octobre 2008 dans le Parc national du Triglav, en Slovénie.
The first edition of eco.mont will be published in June 2009.
The journal was funded as an initiative of the Alpine Network of Protected Areas (ALPARC), the International Scientific Committee on Research in the Alps (ISCAR), the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and the University of Innsbruck .
The journal aims to emphasize research and management issues in and on protected areas in the Alps without excluding other protected mountain areas in Europe or overseas. Target audiences of the new journal are: scientists from all related disciplines, managers of protected areas and an interested public including practitioners, visitors, teachers, etc.
eco.mont will be published twice a year in a joint effort of the Austrian Academy Press – responsible for the e-version – and Innsbruck University Press – responsible for the print version.
The deadline for the articles to be included in the second edition is the 1st of June 2009.
This new journal will offer a platform specifically for scientists working in and on protected mountain areas.
We would like to introduce to you the newly installed homepage of eco.mont on www.oeaw.ac.at/ecomont . We would be glad if you could link this homepage to yours.
2008 was a very important year for ecological networks in the Alps. Here is a brief overview of everything that has been done :
After 17 months of intensive work during the pre-project phase, the four partners (CIPRA, ISCAR, the WWF and ALPARC) have presented the results that will form the foundations for moving ahead with the practical work on ecological networks in the Alps.
The methodology for establishing ecological networks was out together by a range of scientific experts and has now been finalised and published. The methodology is available at www.alpine-ecological-network.org . The catalogue of measures will also be available soon.
The pilot areas in Austria and Switzerland have already held initial meetings with the key local contributors and activities have now begun in the regions. Meetings with the stakeholders in Germany are due to be held in the near future. In France, the Isère département has begun the operational phase of its large-scale project to recreate biological corridors in the Grésivaudan valley, which includes installing special "animals crossing "warning signs at key points on the road network, alterations to water plants, major awareness-raising campaigns, and more.
The Alpine Space programme — a European Territorial Cooperation programme — has approved a project proposal with a budget of over EUR 3 million on this subject. The official launch of the ECONNECT project was held in Vienna in early November 2008 (see article ).
The German presidency of the ecological network platform of the Alpine Convention has commissioned consultants to devise selection criteria to identify potential pilot Alpine sites for the creation of ecological network projects. In January 2009, France will take over the presidency of the platform for two years (to end-2010).
As you can see, 2008 was a very fruitful year for ecological networks. Not only have we been able to establish a common approach and vision for the Alps, we have also put the first few pieces of the Alpine ecological network in place. We hope that 2009 will be equally productive, so that we can see even more of the bigger picture emerge.
In the course of the collaboration between ALPARC and REEMA (Alpine Mountain Environment Education Network, which covers the French Alps), we realised that we needed a better understanding of the practices and programmes associated with education about the mountain environment in other Alpine protected areas.
In 2008, we began the first review of all such programmes, focussing primarily on innovation. We identified around 40-odd heads of unit responsible for this area to whom we sent a short, 10-point questionnaire. We have received around 20 responses so far from five Alpine countries.
The compendium is made up of summary factsheets: currently all the documents are available in French and English and some are also available in the relevant national language. Each factsheet includes a contact name and website.
For example, you can learn what a park school is, or find out about mixed-age walks, junior rangers, climate education or the game "following the tracks of the wolf". The compendium is available online at www.alparc.org (under Our actions, Environmental education and awareness-raising ).
Of course, the aim is to promote discussion of different experiences within the network. So this is just the beginning: the members of REEMA have already found the results useful and work will continue in 2009 so as to keep on adding to the compendium.
In 2010 we plan to hold the first meeting of environmental education officers.
We would be delighted to hear about your experiences. Contact Marie Stoeckel for more information or to request a copy of the 10-point questionnaire (available in all four Alpine languages).
In order to improve the preservation of large carnivores in the Alps and the Carpathians, the international colloquium "Large carnivores: management, research and public relation strategies of the protected areas" was organised in the Nizke Tatry National Park in Slovakia from 2nd - 4th July 2009.
More than 70 specialists of protected areas, universities, NGOs and ministries in the Alps and the Carpathians met in Liptovsky Jan / Slovakia to broach the complex and often taboo issue of the symbolic species of the mountains: the bear, the wolf and the lynx.
The general presentations of the current situation in both massifs were followed by other lectures, in which participants communicated the results of their research activities, particularly in the field of species’ monitoring, migration and health problems. The main part of the meeting was dedicated to exchanges on the subject of the management of these species, especially in regard to management plans, measures of compensation and conflict management between human activities and these animals. The last session of presentations principally treated the importance of communication activities, environmental education and public relations.
The significance of a very close cooperation between both massifs in this subject was raised during the discussions. To emphasize this cooperation it has been decided to create a common working group "Large carnivores" between ALPARC and CNPA. This group ought to meet soon, after the nomination of a working group leader on the part of the Carpathians.
At the end of this meeting, a brochure about large carnivores in protected areas of the Alps and the Carpathians was published.
Succès pour la première journée de randonnée pour personnes handicapées au Parc régional Chasseral / Suisse
Se retrouver en pleine nature, loin du goudron, pour des personnes handicapées est désormais chose possible. La preuve au Parc régional Chasseral / Suisse où la première journée de randonnée pour les personnes à mobilité réduite a été un vrai succès. Grâce à des chaises roulantes tout terrain, les joëlettes, 15 personnes handicapées et une vingtaine d’accompagnants ont partagé une promenade, sur des sentiers parfois escarpés, dans la joie et la bonne humeur.
La Joëlette est un fauteuil tout terrain mono-roue qui permet la pratique de la randonnée à toute personne à mobilité réduite, enfant ou adulte même très lourdement dépendant avec l’aide de deux pilotes. Elle ouvre pour des personnes à mobilité réduite un horizon complètement inaccessible auparavant. Grâce à son système de frein et d'excellents amortisseurs, cet engin permet d'emprunter des sentiers escarpés et de découvrir des paysages nouveaux dont les amoureux de la nature ne sauront se passer. Les familles ont ainsi la possibilité de partir ensemble en randonnée. L'utilisation de la Joëlette est très simple. Elle se démonte et se plie pour faciliter le transport.
L’aventure de la première journée de randonnée pour personnes handicapées est née de la collaboration entre GSAB Aventures, spécialiste du sport adapté, le Parc régional Chasseral et 9 institutions des cantons du Jura, Berne, Neuchâtel et Vaud.
Forts de ce succès, le prestataire et le parc régional prévoient de développer ensemble un nouvel événement de sport adapté lors de la journée européenne des Parcs en mai 2010.
In response to global warming, the Hohe Tauern National Park in Austria has decided to lead by example. Working together with political decision-makers, the Park's Mittersill visitor centre (Salzburg) is expanding its environmental education programme. The National Park Climate Change School project is designed to teach children and young people how to respect the natural world.
Building on the environmental education formula of experience + knowledge = informed action, young people are shown a wheel of time that indicates how the climate has changed over the last few thousand of years and its impact on the Pasterze glacier. The commentary also refers to the large block of ice housed in the visitor centre. Schoolchildren who visit the National Park are taught about a wide range of climate issues in the purpose-built Science Centre . The Science Centre has its own weather station which can be used to compare meteorological date and thereby demonstrate the realities of global warming. With the aid of a thermometer, pupils observe the difference in temperature gains when sun shines into a clean or CO2-rich atmosphere.
Many schoolteachers who have brought their students to Hohe Tauern National Park confirm that this educational format is very effective. Around 25,000 schoolchildren from Austria, Germany and Switzerland have taken part in the National Park's environmental education programme. Hopefully, given the scale of the audience, future generations will have a more sustainable view of the natural world.
Source: summary of a Hohe Tauern National Park press release
The Alps and the Carpathians shelter a large variety of large wild animals such as deer, lynx, wolf or bear – species that nowadays strongly depend on humans for the conservation of their natural habitat.
The corridor between the Alps and the Carpathians is a traditional migration route for wildlife. This corridor does not only connect the Eastern border of the Alps with the Little Carpathians in Slovakia but also crosses a highly dynamic European region located between the cities of Bratislava, Sopron and Vienna.
In the frame of this transboundary project financed by European funds, several actors collaborate with the aim of the definition and exemplary realisation of concrete activities to improve ecological connectivity. These actors come from nature protection and landscape planning and cooperate with partners from transport, agri- and silviculture, hunting or tourism and also with the concerned communes.
After an intensive preparation phase the project was started mid February 2010. Several partners from Austria and Slovakia are involved in the project.
The Alps-Carpathians corridor supports the aims of the Alpine Convention and constitutes, besides the Danube and the Green Belt along the former “iron curtain”, a major migration route of European importance.
Link to the official project homepage:
http://www.alpenkarpatenkorridor.at/
Further information about the project:
The Ecological Continuum Initiative has published a new series of fact sheets for local stakeholders in German, French and Italian language that are now available online.
The fact sheets are not only informative brochures; their main objective is to put the ideas into action. This is why their target group are the stakeholders, who directly implement ecological networks (e.g. from the ECONNECT pilot regions).
The series of these ten fact sheets covers the most important fields of work, where connectivity measures should be implemented: agriculture, forestry, water management, hunting and fishing, spatial planning, transports, nature protection, tourism, municipalities, and other important players in the establishment of ecological networks.
Each fact sheet will explain the importance from its perspective, regarding ecological connectivity and list concrete measures that stakeholders will be encouraged to implement. Furthermore, good-practice examples from the Alps will be presented in each fact sheet and will show that connectivity measures do work. These good examples will motivate the stakeholders to imitate them.
The printable pdf version of the fact sheets on nature protection, agriculture, transports, landscape planning, water management and forestry are already available for download at: www.alpine-ecological-network.org.
A new report “Implementing a Pan-Alpine Ecological Network - A Compilation of Major Approaches, Tools and Activities” on the alpine activities on ecological connectivity over the past years has been published in the series “BfN Skripten” of the German Federal Agency of Nature Protection.
During the last few years various documents, publications and reports which reflect approaches, tools and activities that support the implementation of an ecological network across the Alps have been published. Some of this information had not been made available for a wide public until now. Others exist only as comprehensive independent publications. Therefore these activities and results have now been compiled and summarised by the Ecological Continuum Initiative in the report “Implementing a Pan-Alpine Ecological Network - A Compilation of Major Approaches, Tools and Activities”.
This new report is available in English language. It is available for download here . You can order your free copy writing to kerstin.lehmann@bfn.de
“The first time I took part in exchanges with the REEMA was at the workshop organised in Zernez during the Alparc meeting. I saw men and women responsible for education on the environment in the protected areas of the Alpine massif. They were gathered around a table and on that table, in pride of place, was an egg.
They spoke about how we need to overcome the fears and apprehensions related to nature by drawing on knowledge and positive feelings; at that point the shell began to crack. Despite language barriers they showed their desire to share their experiences and, as they opened their arms, the bird spread its wings and began to fly. Disregarding borders, it started its journey through the Alpine range, towards that which unites men and shapes the Alpine identity. If you see that bird in the Alpine skies, tell yourself that its journey has hardly begun and that each of us has the choice of deciding whether to follow it or not”...
Frank Miramand, ASTERS - Conservatory of Natural Areas of Haute-Savoie.
Several people responsible for education about the environment in the various protected areas in the Alps had the opportunity of meeting for the first time for a workshop dedicated to the theme of their work on 19 and 20 October 2010 alongside the ALPARC General Assembly in the Swiss National Park .
Inscriptions poured in – proof of how important and topical this theme is- and unfortunately some delegates had to be refused (except for protected areas).
Finally 26 people looked into their profession and the possibilities for cooperation on an Alpine scale. The meeting was co-organised with the Reema (Alpine Network for Education about the Mountain Environment), which brings together those responsible for environmental education in the French Alpine protected areas. The other Alpine countries were equally well-represented so that 1/3 of the participants were French, 1/3 Italian and 1/3 German-speaking (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). Most importantly, they were all very motivated!
Apart from the primary objective of meeting opposite numbers from other Alpine parks or reserves in order to exchange thoughts about their profession and their experiences, the aim of the meeting was to define together ideas on common actions and projects. The working group thus constituted confirmed its wish to begin collaboration on this theme on an Alpine scale within the framework of ALPARC.
The meeting made it possible to list various working directions and several ideas for actions or more developed projects: participation in the Phénoclim programme , setting up of common teaching tools, pooling of resources, think tanks on educational values ( Alpine identities, mountain culture …), work on the assessment of educational initiatives but also on the recognition of the educational mission inside the parks, etc…
It now remains to define priorities and a working schedule for the group who are notably going to use a collaboration space online which is in the process of being set up.
These exchanges revealed the feeling that there is a lack of consideration for the educational mission inside the protected areas (in most of the countries represented) in comparison with other missions such as research or scientific monitoring. This is often expressed by a lack of human and financial means.
It has become apparent, however, that education about the mountain environment is one of the essential missions of the Alpine protected areas. This is because enabling their inhabitants and visitors, young and old, to discover, feel and experience the mountains and Alpine nature (“educating through the heart and emotions”), is a vital first step towards the respect of this environment! The delegates therefore wished to give a reminder that environment education is a real tool in the protection of nature.
If you are responsible for environmental education in an Alpine protected area, but were not present at this meeting, you can of course join the working group for the continuation of the work: contact marie.stoeckel@alparc.org