It’s a full-time job for the 12 project partners of the Interreg Alpine Space Project YOUrALPS – Educating youth for the Alps: (re)connecting Youth and Mountain heritage for an inspiring future in the Alps. (2016- 2019).

Since the official launch of the project, which took place during the Kick-off Meeting (January 2017 – Chambéry, France), each work package leader and project partner has been fully involved in structuring project activities to foster and strengthen the Alpine mountain-oriented education sector via concrete international cooperation.

On the one hand the project consortium is laying the foundation for structuring an international network of formal and non-formal education actors under the coordination of the French Network Educ’Alpes. A joint database and web-platform will be the central tool supporting exchanges between stakeholders. The first version of the web-platform will be available by the end of the year.

On the other hand the Innsbruck University Department of Geography is leading the research to gather innovative practices in Mountain-Oriented Education in order to provide an overview of the status quo of existing Mountain-Oriented Education practices in the Alpine countries. A first report of the “Good practices” has been concluded by the VNO and is available on the YOUrALPS website.  In this frame, to identify success factors as well as challenges of “Mountain-Oriented Education”, an Alpine-wide survey addressed to young people has been circulated. We invite all of you to invite young Alpine inhabitants to take part in the survey.

Moreover, 12 YOUrALPS’ pilot sites from all the Alpine countries have been selected.  The pilot sites, a tandem of a school with a protected area, will work jointly during the 2017- 2018 school year in order to provide young people with opportunities to develop their awareness of and sensitivity to the Alpine natural and cultural heritage.

The project consortium will meet in Ljubljana (12- 13 June 2017) for the Project Steering Group Meeting. A “Summer School” addressed to educators & teachers will take place in Slovenia from 28th to 31st August 2017 and will be hosted by the project partner BC Naclo High school.

ALPARC is project leader for YOUrALPS. The Network is responsible for technical and financial management and coordination of project partners’ activities. ALPARC is also responsible for the project communication activities. YOUrALPS lasts from November 2016 to October 2019 and is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Alpine Space programme (Total budget: 2.001.017, 40 € - ERDF grant: 1.615.864, 77 EUR).


YOUrALPS partners:

•   For further information about the project, please visit the YOUrALPS web site. 
ALPARC contact: 
Letizia Arneodo Letizia.arneodo@alparc.org
Veronika Widmann  veronika.widmann@alparc.org

•    For further information about the survey please contact:
Attn:  Maximilian Riede Maximilian.Riede@uibk.ac.at Universität Innsbruck - Institut für Geographie

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 from outdoor sports participants.

By now and based on these workshop results, ALPARC has 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 will bring together 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 its 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 beginning of the year was composed of numerous meetings for the ALPBIONET2030 project partners: a partners’ meeting in the Kalkalpen National Park, one of the project working regions, bi- or plurilateral meetings to coordinate the work of the individual Work Packages and an experts’ workshop to define the guideline to re-design the connectivity-mapping-tool JECAMI.

Mapping the results of the project was the central issue of many discussions during this time. The partners now agreed on a methodology and defined the adapted indicators to analyse, identify and map the Strategic Alpine Connectivity Areas (SACA), one of the key objectives of the project.

First data collection, analysis and mapping activities were also carried out concerning the wildlife management approaches of the different Alpine countries and regions.

Finally, a first round of surveys was launched in order to identify the main human-wildlife conflicts also linked to connectivity issues amongst different Alpine stakeholders. A further survey targeting a younger public of students is currently being developed.

The project homepage is now online and offers an interesting overview of the project activities and the advancement of the work: http://www.alpine-space.eu/projects/alpbionet2030/en/home. In addition to the project factsheet (in all Alpine languages) and a poster, a project flyer summarising the main project information will be available soon.

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