A sunny day somewhere in the Swiss Engadin valley. Cries and laughter come from a group of usually stressed managers in a medium-sized Swiss company handling unusual tools for them: motor saws, brush cutters, and forks. The group is participating in a “nature day” event, a team building session where they participate in nature protection activities under the supervision of local farmers and biologists. Their activities of clearing meadows from bushes and trees contribute to safeguarding important habitats for specific plants and animals and improving ecological connectivity. The farmers involved in the project benefit from important additional work power and they get paid for hosting and overseeing the activities of the group. 

This example is one of the numerous measures carried out to improve the functional links between habitats by the Alpine Pilot Regions for Ecological connectivity that were presented during the 2 Workshops that took place in the Eastern and Western Alps in March 2017.

The project partners of the GreenConnect project will now analyse in more detail the possible positive socio-economic effects of such activities in the concerned regions. The project should allow a widening of the approach to the topic of ecological connectivity by adding a social and economic dimension to the dialogue and provide additional arguments for the exchanges with the (local) stakeholders.           

The results of this analysis will be presented at the project’s final conference in autumn 2017.

By the end of the year, the Bavarian Parliament will express its opinion on the adjustments to the Regional Development Programme (Landesentwicklungsprogramm, LEP) and notably on the modification of the Alpine Plan (Alpenplan) that is an integral part of it.

Last autumn the issue of the modification of the Alpine Plan was raised by another consultation. On that occasion, two municipalities expressed their favor of such a modification in order to allow the construction of a connection between two ski resorts in the area of the Riedberger Horn.

Before proceeding with the modification, the Bavarian Parliament has called for two public consultations. The first one took place on 27th April and mostly involved experts. Land use, infrastructures, the relationship between urban and rural areas and the extent of autonomy for the local authorities are among the main topics discussed during the consultations. The second public hearing the Bavarian Parliament has called for is scheduled on 22nd June and will consult minorities.

ALPARC takes a very critical view of the modification and the “softening” of the Bavarian Alpine Plan which has been for several decades one of the most serious management and spatial planning tools in the entire Alps.

Further information concerning the topic can be found here, on the website of the Bavarian Parliament.

Further reads

Job, H., Mayer, M., & Kraus, F. (2014). The best idea Bavaria has ever had: the alpenplan. Land use planning of vision/Die beste idee, die bayern je hatte: der alpenplan. Raumplanung mit Weitblick. GAIA-Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, 23(4), 335-345.

Young people (14-25 years old) tend to leave peripheral Alpine regions due to the lack of personal and professional fulfilment, in particular regarding education and job opportunities as well as social integration. The majority of decision- and policy-makers lack awareness of the needs of young people as well as tools to better integrate them in urban and rural societies.

During the first period of the GaYA project (Governance and Youth in the Alps), ALPARC and the project consortium collected data on democratic and participatory processes across the Alps which particularly focus on youth. The aim is to highlight the best practices of youth participation in a comparative study, which is led by Eurac Research. The results will be officially presented at the international workshop “Democratic Participation in Political Decision-Making: The Involvement of Young Adults in the Alpine Region”, to be held on June 29th 2017 (9.30 am -5.00pm) at Eurac Research in Bolzano (IT).

Regarding the pilot stage following this preliminary study, the pilot site selection process is about to conclude. Overall, the project will implement trainings and pilot actions in 12 pilot sites, i.e. cities, municipalities and regions, in order to spread and exchange knowledge and encourage participation by the younger generations in democratic processes. ALPARC is work package leader in the pilot stage (End 2017-2018).

GaYA runs from November 2016 to February 2019 and is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Alpine Space programme (Total budget: 1.092.748 € - 928.836€ ERDF grant).
 
For further information, please visit the GaYA website.

The registration for the 12th edition of the international photo contest “Fotografare il Parco” is open. The contest is organized by the Stelvio, the Gran Paradiso, the Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise and the Vanoise National Parks.

The four protected areas are glad to welcome all those visitors passionate about photography and nature who would like to take pictures of the biodiversity heritage of the national parks and who want to show their work to the large public.

The winners will be awarded high level instruments for nature observation and photography, printing discounts, weekends in the parks and subscriptions to magazines.

The participation is free of charge and the registration is open until 30th of September 2017.

For further information about the contest and its rules, visit the website here.

The contest is organized with the financial support of Swarovski Optik Italia and the support of Alparc and Federparchi.

The WeWild project (2016-2018) got well under way with the first workshop which was organised in Vorarlberg in March 2017. 16 stakeholders from six Alpine countries attended the two-day event, thereby underlining the interest in a common, Alpine-wide communication strategy regarding the behaviour of snow sports participants.

The fruitful workshop discussions helped the working group to identify the major needs regarding such a joint strategy and to reveal potential risks. It also allowed for the collection of ideas for objectives, actions and tools. Valuable input came from the stakeholder presentations on information campaigns and from Nils Westerfeld’s presentation on factors influencing eco-friendly behaviour of outdoor sports participants.

By now and based on these workshop results, ALPARC started working on a joint communication strategy that will also frame the creation of joint communication tools. ALPARC will launch a joint Alps-wide initiative that gathers protected areas as well as other key players and interested partners. The initiative’s mission is to educate and raise awareness of outdoor recreationists in the Alps using international cooperation, exchange and communication. Based on a positive, non-regulatory attitude, its aim is to gain momentum, increase visibility of existing campaigns and contribute to eco-friendly behaviour in snow and outdoor sports. The initiative will have an own identity and will be promoted via a website and a video clip which will be released in 2018. Our members, protected areas and other partners will be given the opportunity to join the initiative by signing a common mission statement.

The upcoming milestones in 2017 are the finalisation of the communication strategy, the creation of the graphical identity, video and website as well as the second WeWild workshop to be held in November 2017 in Aree Protette dell’Ossola (IT).
Interested protected areas and other organisations are openly invited to join our initiative and contribute to its development. For any inquiry, please contact Maša Klemenčič or Dominik Cremer-Schulte at the ALPARC office.

The project is financed by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN, Germany) with funds of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB, Germany).

Verba Alpina is an international project, directed by 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. 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 scientific public, but is also easily understandable to general public thanks to the interactive map.

You can find out more about the project here.

We are pleased to announce that the registration is now open for the international Conference and Exhibition: "The Wolf in the Alpine cultural landscape -  chances and challenges". 

The conference will take place from the 16th to the 18th of May 2017 in Sölk, Sölktäler Nature Park (Styria – Austria).

Please fill in the registration form attached and send it back to: kontakt@naturparkakademie.at before the 2nd May 2017.

For further information on the Conference, please find attached the programme and practical information.

This event is co-organised by SÖLKTÄLER NATURE PARK with ALPARC.

With the financial support of:

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. The application for potential journalist participants is currently open! 

Interested journalists are invited to apply by the deadline on the 30th of April 2017. Selected candidates will be notified by mid-May.

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

Euromab 2017: European and North American Biosphere Reserve meetings, Dordogne Basin Biosphere Reserve, France

The first workshop of the WeWild project took place in Vorarlberg (Austria) last week, on March 23rd and 24th 2017. Attended by 18 participants from six countries, it offered two intense and productive days of exchange and brain-storming. The aim was to exchange on experiences of information and communication campaigns regarding wildlife disturbance in winter and to develop elements for a joint initiative of Alpine protected areas. The exchange highlighted valuable information and ideas for such common initiative.

The participants worked in groups to identify the main needs of a transnational communication strategy and discussed the design of first common tools in a session of round-tables. These tools, a website, a video-clip and a graphical identity will be developed and made available to all ALPARC members by January 2018.

The workshop included a short field trip, organized by the hosting Nagelfluhkette nature park, during which we saw and discussed different on-site information panels used on the Austrian and German sides of the border. The park staff explained their campaign “Your space of freedom – my living space”, which groups both German and Austrian information campaigns. Since 2008, the nature park brings together the southern part of Allgäu region in Germany and the region Bregenzerwald in Austria; it was the first trans-border nature park between the two countries. Alongside agriculture, tourism is one of the main economic activities, with 2,5 million overnight stays each year.

Nature park Adamello Brenta (ITA) invites you to an evening dedicated to the mountain fauna in the park. During the conference, students that have worked on the subject for their thesis will present the results of their research. The event will take place in the conference hall of Palazzo Lodron Bertelli in Caderzone Terme on Friday, March 24th at 20h30.

For more information, please contact : + 39 (0)465.806666 / info@pnab.it

www.pnab.it

Please find the official invitation in the attachment here below.

WeWild Workshop 1 in Lingenau, Nagelfluhkette nature park (AT)

Further information at http://www.alparc.org/our-actions/economy-and-life-quality/wewild