La Rete delle Aree Protette Alpine
Every year, the Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention invites journalists on the We are Alps, a tour across the Alps to experience interesting initiatives in the Alps hands-on and meet various stakeholders, travelling with trains, buses and other sustainable means of transport.
This year, the tour will take place as the “We are Alps Compact” edition, being held on Wednesday 3 April – Thursday 4 April simultaneously to the XV Alpine Conference and focussing on the topics of Climate Change, Natural Hazard and Governance. Excursions in and around Innsbruck (AT) will demonstrate how these three issues are approached, taking into account the particularities of the Alpine natural features. Furthermore, the participants will get the chance to converse with political representatives of the 8 Alpine Countries in the run-up to the XV Alpine Conference (taking place in the morning of 4 April) and participate in the closing Press Conference.
The call is open until Sunday, 10 March for interested journalists from all types of media, particularly from Alpine countries to apply for a place on the tour.
Further information and the application documents can be found on the Alpine Convention’s website.
The 25th Edition of the Danilo Re Memorial – the trophy of the Alpine Protected Areas, will take place on January 16th-19th 2020 in Mittersill, Hohe Tauern National Park, Salzburg, Austria.
The event will host, as usual, the ALPARC General Assembly. It will be held on January 17th, 2020. All the ALPARC members are invited to participate.
Further information will be available in autumn on the Memorial Danilo Re website and on Facebook
Are you interested in discovering how Mountain-oriented Education can provide young people with the means to tackle the present and future challenges for the Alps?
Come to the conference and ask the students themselves!
Youth representatives from the project's pilot sites from all over the Alpine arc will gather to Chambéry to share their experiences of this innovative pedagogical approach.
This will also be the occasion to assist to the official certification ceremony during which eight pilot sites will be officially labelled as 'Alpine schools' and 'Alpine school Partners'.
And on day 2, three thematic excursions will be organised to investigate three crucial topics for the sustainable development of the Alps: climate change, biodiversity and sustainable consumption.
Alpine Water - common good or source of conflicts?
The proceedings of the FoumAlpinum 2018 and the 7th Water Conference of the Alpine Convention have been published online. The volume contains abstracts of all presentations and posters dealing with questions of water use in the Alpine region and foreseeable future water use conflicts, as well as measures to avoid them. The proceedings also contain a summary of the 7th Water Conference and the results of the mapping of hotspots of water use in the Alpine region, that were recorded during the conference with the participants. The key messages of the ForumAlpinum 2018 are summarized in a policy brief addressed to the Alpine Convention and relevant administrations, entitled „Action needed to prevent future conflict over the use and management of water in the Alpine region in times of climate change and growing demand“.
The ForumAlpinum 2018 has been organised by the International Scientific Committee for Alpine Research (ISCAR) together with the 7th Water Conference of the Alpine Convention and the Macroregion Alpine Space (www.forumalpinum.org).
Download Proceedings: https://doi.org/10.1553/forumalpinum2018
Source: ISCAR
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Mont Avic Nature Park, the park organizes an international competition of nature photography called "avic30photocontest".The competition is dedicated to the Alpine nature and aims to promote through photography the knowledge of the Alpine environment and awareness of the value of its protection. The 30th anniverasy of the park is marked by the motto "1989-2019: thirty years between nature and man".
Participate in the contest by sending your best photos on the topic! .
More information are available at www.avic30photocontest.eu
or write to avic30photocontest@montavic.it
The partners of the Alpine Space project YOUrALPS met on February 14th and 15th in the Burgenland to learn from different practices, knowledge and techniques on environmental education.
In the context of a project steering group meeting, the YOUrALPS partners from France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia had the possibility to gain some inspiring knowledge about education practices in the Austrian partner land.
One of the impressive stops was the nature lab in Bad Sauerbrunn, the so called „Werkstatt Natur“, a non for profit institution which was founded by the regional hunter‘s federation. Today, the lab hosts more than 10 000 kids per year which participate in one of the pedagogical programs. There is a wide range of programs according to the varying season and the institution allows also individual programs which are elaborated in cooperation with the teacher of a class. Hence, some programs focus more on re-connecting youngsters to nature by simply bringing them out into the forest and experience the forest according to the very season while others identify a specific topic such as «wildlife and traffic» were they get to know how wildlife perceives and reacts on traffic lights or the „creek hike“ were children discover the role of different living organisms of the water world and may fish for fish. The next stop was dedicated to the use of nature’s ressources such as wild herbs. Uschi Zezelitsch a herb expert and 
hedge witch introduced the group to some of her childrens’programs and creative nature interpretation methodologies. Herbs are a perfect tool to introduce children to the world of natural cooking, taking nature’s ingredients and smelling what nature has to offer. Many of the herbs can directly be picked in nearby meadows, others grow easily in the home gardens or inside a plant pot. This way, children and adolescents can try out making their own herbs salt, herbs bread or even a herb „strudel“. Moreover, delicious juices can be easily prepared with wild mint and ginger for example.
Some of these ideas might be included in the contents of the Alpine school model, one of the major YOUrALPS project outputs, aiming at re-connecting youth to their natural environment. Since September 2017, 14 pilot sites have been carrying out activities on education for sustainable development in order to validate the theoretical model and be certified as « Alpine school ». The Alpine School model will be presented at the conference: “ Learning and networking for sustainable development in the Alps. The Alpine School & Our Alps network.“ on May 14 and 15 in Morbegno (Italy)
For further information please see:
https://www.alpine-space.eu/projects/youralps/en/home
https://www.werkstatt-natur.at/
http://www.uschi-zezelitsch.at/
On Thursday 21 February, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region was awarded with the “2018 Marianne d'or “ for sustainable development.
The award was handed over to Etienne Blanc, Senior Vice-President of the Region, and Eric Fournier, Vice-President in charge of Environment and Sustainable Development, Energy and Regional Natural Parks. This prize recognizes "an exemplary of the region in supporting of an innovative ecological transition". The Marianne d'Or for sustainable development is a "concrete indicator of field initiatives settled by motivated policy makers, private companies and engaged citizens" the committee points out. Created in 1984 during the first French decentralization actions, the Marianne d'Or competition is the first civical competition in France, with the objective of disseminating good practices led by local authorities.
Awareness-raising and communication actions on human-nature conflicts in nature and mountain sports are growing throughout the Alpine region. To support nature conservation and to reduce the disturbance of wildlife by winter sports, flyers, web pages, videos, events and meetings have been developed in several Alpine protected areas under the umbrella of the international initiative “Be Part of the Mountain”.
Some Protected Areas in the front line
This winter, the Vanoise National Park (France) has launched an awareness campaign on this subject, disseminating awareness messages and information on the needs of wildlife. Several communication tools have been produced with the slogan “Be Part of the Mountain” and a specific graphic design as well as t-shirts, stickers and flyers. The initiative is also supported by different local ambassadors from the field of sport for a wider dissemination of the campaign throughout the country.
In the Ecrins National Park (France) the rangers organize meetings, events, animations on the theme of winter wildlife disturbance and especially on the topic "traces and clues" for the general public including youngsters. The Park has been involved in this topic for several years with the “Chuut!” campaign.
In Italy, the Aree Protette dell’Ossola with CIPRA IT, also based on the BpM campaign, are developing several activities in the frame of the RESICETS project.The initiative involves several stakeholders of the tourism sector and aims at developing information paths for tourists, awareness-raising campaigns and training courses for local stakeholders on the impact of tourism on wildlife.
A common communication strategy: “Be Part of the Mountain”
The “Be part of the Mountain” initiative was launched by ALPARC in 2018. It is an Alps-wide communication campaign that allies protected areas, nature protection organisations, public bodies, Alpine clubs and ambassadors – across the Alps, aiming at facilitating the exchange of good practices, developing common awareness-raising tools and implementing joint communication action to initiate behavioural change in outdoor participants. The video presenting the campaign is available here. At present, 8 members have officially signed the charter and others have expressed their interest in joining the initiative.
Are you interested in the initiative? Join the BpM campaign and sign the charter!
For more information see: https://bepartofthemountain.org/en/
Further information about some initiatives in protected ares:
The ALPARC General Assembly was held in Les Contamines Montjoies France on 25th January 2019 traditionally within the context of the yearly Memorial Danilo Re (24th edition) which took place in the Contamines Natural Reserve (ASTERS, France). The Memorial and General Assembly coincided with the 40th anniversary of the Natural Reserve.
The General Assembly was held in the presence of the Ambassador and General Secretary of the Alpine Convention, Markus Reiterer, the representative of the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, Simone Remund and the representative of the CGET Philipphe Matheron. Moreover, the representatives of the of the Auvergne Rhone-Alpes Region, Genevieve Borodine and the representative of the Sud Region Robert Gentili were also present.
The members of all the protected areas and of every category were well represented and this enabled the Assembly to validate the reports of the president, the treasurer and the director , the activity programme 2018- 2019 as well as the budget for 2019
Other important issues debated at the General Assembly concerned the new Alpine Space projects presented for the 4th Call of the Programme and the ongoing activities of the current European projects: ALPBIONET2030 , YOUrALPS and GaYA. The perspectives and futures of ALPARC’s actions were discussed. In this frame, the members approved the elaboration of three-year programme from 2020 and voted for a larger consultation of the members via workshops for the elaboration of the new programme. The role of ALPARC within the Alpine Convention and the Alpine Macro-regional Strategy was confirmed
The members also approved the concept of an event for the 25th anniversary of ALPARC, as a tour in the Alps bringing a common message and to link in to the IUCN Word Conference in Marseille. The members also validated the establishment of the ALPARC regional platform in the central Alps (Bavaria) with a legal entity directly linked to the ALPARC network in order to get access to new support and members on a regional and transboundary level.
A big thank you to ASTERS for holding a very constructive General Assembly whose decisions clearly show that ALPARC is open to the reinforcement of a shared cooperation between the alpine protected areas.
The Links4Soils summer school will take place from June 10th of June to 14th 2019 on the Pokljuka Plateau, a part of the Triglav National Park in Slovenia (TNP) biosphere reserve.
Five exciting days of an interactive program with creative and inspiring minds on the Pokljuka plateau, Slovenia!
Members of the high school students in the alpine region are invited to join and learn about soils, how soil is vital for humans, nature, environment and entire life in terrestrial ecosystems. Soils, soil diversity, soil ecosystem services and protection are main topics that will be presented to the youth interestingly and understandably. Groups of five to six students with a school mentor will be hosted by the local organisers (the Agricultural Institute of Slovenia and the Slovenian Forest Service) and coached by an international group of professors of soil science and experts – Links4Soils project partners. Accommodation of participants (students and accompanying teachers, soil experts of international reputation as well as researchers from institutes and universities the school mentors) and meals will be arranged with the kind assistance of the TNP and the Slovenian Ministry of Defence.
For more information: https://alpinesoils.eu/summer-school/
Or contact: jurka.lesjak@kis.si
We learned with great sadness of the death of Phillipe Traub, former director of the Parc national des Écrins, due to illness.
Philippe Traub has spent most of his career in national parks: Deputy Director of the Cévennes National Park from 1979 to 1990, Director of the Ecrins National Park from 1990 to 2000, then of the Vanoise National Park until his retirement in 2011.
While he was director of the Parc national des Ecrins, we built with Philippe the international action that led to the emergence of ALPARC. Philippe supported the international action and contributed enormously to the network with his knowledge, contacts, enthusiasmhis and way of being, thoughtful and noble. Our former president Michael Vogel, with whom Philippe exchanged a lot, underline his respect and admiration for Philippe's commitment and express his sadness.