Mreža zavarovanih območij v Alpah
Experiences and educational approaches for children and young people all across the Alps were shared during ALPARC’s 5th workshop on Mountain Education in Alpine Protected Areas. The workshop was held from October 3rd-5th, 2018 in Trenta, Triglav National Park (SL) and gathered protected area staff as well as external experts involved in mountain-oriented education. The workshop aimed at fostering international exchanges and increasing knowledge on current issues such as the use of technology in environmental education activities and the role of youth participation in the different protected areas.
The use of new technologies in environmental education
The Slovenian Centre for Outdoor Activities (CSOD) guided the debate on the use of new technologies in outdoor activities. The theoretical approach was followed by a field experiment allowing participants to directly test an app developed by the organization with the help of teachers. However, some barriers still remain - the use of new technologies can cause young people to become increasingly disconnected from nature. However, it was argued that new technologies can be an educational support in activities and may facilitate the first contact with nature for those who are not used to having a hands-on experience in the mountains.
Youth participation in protected areas
The meeting was also an opportunity to discuss the subject of youth participation in protected areas. The experts from the city of Idrija, with Mateuz Straus, facilitated an exchange on this topic and contributed with their experience gained during the GaYa project. Improving youth participation in park operations is considered essential to increase young people's awareness of nature protection, allowing them to become further anchored and more involved in their territories. Several protected areas such as Prealpi Giulie favor a youth council which is involved in official park meetings and manages its own budget.
This workshop was co-organized by ALPARC and Triglav National Park.
The Federal National Park Commission has appointed Ruedi Haller as the new director of the Swiss National Park. On 1 October 2019, he will succeed Prof. Heinrich Haller who wishes to retire.
The Director is responsible for the operational management of the Swiss National Park. He heads the Park and its 3 divisions: Operations and Monitoring, Research and Geographic Information Systems, Communication and Public Relations. 45 employees share 27 full-time positions. The management and administration of the Park is centralized in Zernez, where the Visitor Centre was built 10 years ago. The Federal National Park Commission (FNTC), appointed by the Federal Council, is the strategic body of the Swiss National Park.
Ruedi Haller will be the seventh director to assume operational management of the oldest national park in the Alps since its foundation in 1914.
We offer our congratulations to Ruedi Haller and wish him all the best as director.
The YOUrALPS infodays series mark an important chapter in the Interreg Alpine Space project: scientific findings with surprising output on mountain-oriented education were presented to political stakeholders and other interested actors.
The Berchtesgaden National Park was the first in line and organised a two-day conference on education for sustainable development and mountain-oriented education. Around 90 participants joined the conference and discussed specific methods and topics in the Alps, explicitly referring to future perspectives to connect youth increasingly to nature and their Alpine environment. The conference was held in collaboration with the „Arbeitsgemeinschaft Natur und Umweltbildung Bayern“ (ANU) and was inaugurated by Dr. Christian Barth, Department Head of the Bavarian Ministry of Environment.
The French infoday was held in the context of an International Festival on Jobs relating to the mountain environment. Hence, numerous stakeholders active in the territory, including teachers, mountain guides, and employees in the public sector dealing with education topics, participated in a dynamic exchange. Local actors emphasized the necessity of including political actors in the debate to assure the inclusion of mountain-related topics and outdoor education in curricula. Moreover, interest for joining the YOUrALPS initiative became clear: several actors stressed the wish to move their local initiatives onto a larger, international level.
The Lombardy Region was in charge of the organisation of the infoday in Milan. Invitees joined for a half day meeting and got in touch with YOUrALPS pilot sites who presented their activities. Moreover, the Alpine school model which is to serve as a label for those schools engaging in in-depth collaboration with protected areas was presented, implementing the criteria which were developed in a theoretical approach.
For further information please see http://www.alpine-space.eu/projects/youralps/e
Educators, teachers, researchers and organizations in the field of education you are all invited to network via the new OurAlps web platform. An interactive map, information on events and news as well as the exchange of educational materials, photos and videos allow all interested people to get involved and contact other actors in different countries. The website is available in five languages and is the central communication tool of the international network of the same name. The network is based on the broad values and principles of environmental education. A link to the YAPP platform, a web site dedicated to youth exchanges, is also included on the OurAlps home page.
The OUrALPS network and its web platform have been developed in the frame of the Interreg Alpine Space project YOUrALPS and they will be officially presented in a conference in Morbegno (Italy) the 14th and 15th of May 2019.
ALPARC is lead partner for YOUrALPS and responsible for technical and financial management and the coordination of project partners’ activities. Moreover, the network is responsible for the project’s communication activities.
YOUrALPS is an Interreg Alpine Space project and lasts from November 2016 to October 2019. It is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Alpine Space programme.
For further information about the project, please visit the YOUrALPS website
The successful two-year WeWild project ("We respect Alpine Wildlife") on ecologically friendly mountain sports has officially been completed. On November 7th, the final event of the project was officially held at the Alpine Museum of the Alpine Club in Munich. Once again, the project mobilized a large number of German and international stakeholders from protected area managements, Alpine clubs, authorities and nature conservation organisations, who used this day to exchange their experiences. The lively group discussions in the afternoon revealed current problems such as the growing influence of social media and online communities on the number of visits to sensitive natural areas. Options for action were discussed. The final event showed that all actors in the fields of nature conservation and (sustainable) nature sports in the Alps should take a stand on "overtourism" and "overmountaineering" and should jointly develop solutions.
Through the WeWild project and for the Alpine protected areas, ALPARC was able to launch a joint communication and cooperation initiative on human-nature conflicts in nature and mountain sports: "Be Part of the Mountain" (BPM). In the future, this initiative should promote the exchange of sustainable solutions, increase the reach of regional and local initiatives and develop joint awareness-raising tools and messages for nature conservation in mountain sports.
With the first snow that has arrived these days in the Alps, the number of members of “Be Part of the Mountain” has already risen to nine. Most recently, the Massif des Bauges Nature Park in France and the Dobratsch Nature Park in Austria were officially added as members. Members of BPM are officially committed to and promote the vision and common values of the initiative for ecologically friendly mountain sports that does not neglect nature conservation. They are involved - some of them already very successfully - at their level - in area management, visitor guidance and awareness-raising communication.
The following organisations are members of the initiative "Be Part of the Mountain" at the end of 2018:
• The Ossola Protected Areas, Italy
• CIPRA Italia, Italy
• The UNESCO Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch World Heritage Site, Switzerland
• The Vercors Regional Natural Park, France
• The Mont Avic Natural Park, Italy
• The Nagelfluhkette Natural Park, Germany
• The Dobratsch Natural Park, Austria
• The Regional Natural Massif des Bauges Park, France
For more information see: www.bepartofthemountain.org
ALPARC is currently carrying out the Destination Parks project, which aims to promote the exchange of Alpine park destinations on sustainable tourism and to develop a common positioning of these regions in Alpine tourism. In October and December, regional exchanges took place in three best practise regions: the Queyras Nature Park in the Southern French Alps, the Gesäuse National- and Nature Park Region in Styria and the Dobratsch Nature Park in Carinthia.
In France, in the Queyras, the participants exchanged notably on the development of sustainable products for park tourism and their marketing (target groups, nature-oriented activities and packages). The marketed tourism products are tightly linked to the natural and cultural heritage of the Queyras valley. The visits to the regions in Carinthia and Styria were successfully organized by ALPARC as a study trip: In the Gesäuse region, the exchange focused primarily on regional branding and cooperation (for whom, how and what). The presentation of the successful development of the "Gesäuse" brand by the regional tourism organisation made the exchange very concrete and the discussions highlighted important success factors. At the Dobratsch, Villach's local mountain in Carinthia, the participants were then given a lively demonstration of what the future of low altitude ski resorts in the Alps could look like. Since 2002, the local stakeholders have positioned the Nature Park as a sustainable nature showplace (NaturSchauPlatz) for everyone, whereby the tourism strategy is coupled with a holistic visitor guidance concept. As part of the "Magische Momente" (Magic Moments) campaign, nature-based tourism offers are cross-marketed in Carinthia's nature parks.
The exchanges in the three regions have provided the participants with many good examples of a more sustainable Alpine tourism. In all three regions, success factors for the cooperation between tourism organisations and protected area managements as well as for the development of partner programmes also came to light. The partner programmes in particular are extremely important for sustainable tourism and the valorisation of regional production, as they can promote ownership of the protected area idea among locals and visitors alike.
The project is carried out with support of the Federal Office for the Environment (BAFU, Switzerland).
This appeal went to the politicians of the Alpine countries at the final conference of the GaYA project in Chambéry/F. The extent to which the topic gets people moving was shown by the participation of numerous young people and representatives from politics and society throughout the Alps.
Actively promote a political culture of participation, anchor the participation of young people in decision-making processes, and make youth participation a must, not just a nice extra! The partner organisations of the Interreg GaYA project brought these political recommendations to the politicians of the Alpine countries.
How can youth participation in cities and rural areas be promoted? What innovative ideas and projects are there? What can politicians and decision-makers do? More than 200 participants from all Alpine countries travelled to the GaYA conference in Chambéry, France, to answer questions on youth participation. In interactive sessions, young people, politicians and interested parties from various Alpine countries exchanged ideas. In addition, the event offered music and Alpine cuisine as well as films produced by young people, which were presented as part of an Alpine-wide film competition.
The conference also marked the end of the two-year EU GaYA project. Besides the international exchange and the political recommendations, the project partners presented a toolbox for youth participation and a comparative study on participatory democracy in the Alps.
As a GaYA project partner, ALPARC is also committed to involving the younger generation more closely in political decision-making processes especially in the rural areas and in the protected areas municipalities. For two years ALPARC was responsible for the coordination of the pilot activities and a video presenting the main project achievements and innovative results was developed by the network and presented at the GaYA final event.
Source: GaYA Press release 17.12.2018
Information on GaYA project: www.alpine-space.eu/projects
You know about Ecological Connectivity, Fragmentation and Habitats? Well then, take up the challenge and test your knowledge in our picture quiz!
At this moment, a picture quiz is running to bring the topic of Ecological Connectivity closer to a wider public. In this perspective the project partners of the ALPBIONET2030 project have collected pictures and questions to set up an entertaining online picture quiz game and raise attention to the key topic of the project: ecological connectivity.
Let pictures speak instead of words: https://apps.facebook.com/fb-quizzes/ecological-connectivity
Identifying the Strategic Alpine Connectivity Areas (SACA) and proposing some concrete actions to safeguard their role for an Alpine ecological network – that is one of the main challenges facing the ALPBIONET2030 project.
During the project Mid-term Conference that took place on 2nd and 3rd July 2018 in the Berchtesgaden Project Working Region (PWR), first results of the mapping of these areas were presented to the interested audience (online access to GIS tool Jecami https://2030.jecami.eu/viewer/saca/). An excursion in the region offered the opportunity to get an idea of what different types of SACA could look like – and how to conserve or improve their functionality regarding ecological connectivity. Knowing what to do and where to implement the actions is a crucial step for preserving ecological connectivity in an Alpine context – but the support of local stakeholders and the local population is also a determining success factor for all activities.
Spreading the word on ecological connectivity
Different communication tools developed by the project partners make it possible for a wider public to familiarize themselves with the topic and get a feeling of the importance of inter-connected habitats: a picture quiz illustrating ecological connectivity in a landscape context here, exciting online games (https://2030.jecami.eu/) or a short video introducing some features of the project.
ALPARC has selected the Austrian provinces of Styria and Carinthia and their parks for this second exchange event as part of the Destination Parks project. In particular, regional tourism strategies with a focus on protected area tourism as well as cooperation with tourism associations and tourism service providers should be in the foreground. With the insights into the tourism work of the nature park management in both federal states, product development and marketing will also be addressed.
Download the programme below.
The Final conference of the Interreg Alpine Space project GaYA - Governance and youth in the Alps - Young Ideas for the Alps will take place in Chambéry, 30 November 2018, Centre de Congrès Le Manège, Chambéry/F
Are you a decision maker, a young citizen, a youth worker, an NGO or an interested Alpine inhabitant? Would you like to improve the possibility for young people to express their ideas and engage in the life and development of their municipality or region? Do you want to address the challenges of youth participation and find interesting solutions?
The GaYA – Governance and Youth in the Alps - conference is a unique experience, a chance to enjoy interactive sessions about youth participation and governance, music, an Alpine buffet and films made by young people. Come and appreciate the exchange with and creativity of participants from different alpine countries and speaking different languages.
The GaYA – Governance and Youth in the Alps - conference is a unique experience to enjoy interactive sessions about youth participation, music, an Alpine buffet and films made by young people. Join the conference and make your voice count!
During the conference, will be shown the best video made by the alpine young generation, in the frame of GaYA Film Festival “My Alps – My Chance".
For further information, programme and registration: http://www.alpine-space.eu/projects/gaya/en/home
ALPARC is pleased to invite you to the closing event of the WeWild project (‘We respect Alpine Wildlife’). The event aims at providing nature protection and mountain sports’ stakeholders with the opportunity to exchange experiences and new ideas on the management of nature and mountain sports in the highly frequented areas of the Alpine region. Starting from the current situation, the objective is to think further and imagine potential courses of action.