Mreža zavarovanih območij v Alpah
At their 7th General Meeting on 21 October 2010, the members of ALPARC adopted their Zernez Resolution, which unanimously endorses the concept that the Task Force Protected Areas should remain attached to the Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention. In so doing, they also urgently called upon the 11th Alpine Conference in 2011 to give this measure their vote of confidence, in keeping with the will of the 9th Alpine Conference; and appealed to all Alpine states to adopt measures aimed at seeking broader joint financing for the unique international and inter-state instrument that is ALPARC.
The Permanent Committee of the Alpine Convention was not greatly impressed by this resolution, and at their 44th meeting on 28-29 October in Innsbruck, Austria, decided to extend the Task Force Protected Areas agreement until the end of 2013 only. Hence the Permanent Committee recommended to the Alpine Network of Protected Areas and the International Steering Committee that, using the French report as a basis, they define, in time for the 12th Alpine Conference, the best option for ensuring that the Task Force will be able to continue its work after 2013.
This recommendation was endorsed by the 11th Alpine Conference in Brdo, Slovakia in early March. In this context, various Alpine states stated clearly that in their view ALPARC cannot remain attached to the Permanent Secretariat and that this is non-negotiable.
The French Report of June 2009 concerning the Task Force Protected Areas investigated various options, whereby only three turned out to be viable in terms of the legal status for the continued existence of the Task Force in the post-2013 period:
At its meeting of 17-18 February 2011 in Triesenberg, Liechtenstein, ALPARC’s International Steering Committee established a “Future of Alparc” working group, whose brief is to conduct an inquiry into the relevant legal status and financing related matters. The working group members are as follows: Michael Vogel, chairman (Germany); the two vice-chairmen Alain Brandeis (France) and Bruno Stephan Walder (Switzerland); and members Hermann Stotter (Austria), Christian Schwoehrer (France), Massimo Bocca (Italy), Elio Tompetrini (Italy) and Martin Šolar (Slovakia).
The working group has held three meetings to date – on 20 April and 12 July in Chambéry and on 25 October 2011 in Bern – each of which was attended by a different constellation of representatives of the Task Force. The first meeting was devoted to a detailed discussion of the current situation and the various options available, and the matters that are of most interest and concern to the Task Force members were examined closely.
During the second meeting, the views of the various Alpine states were considered and visions, objectives and recommendations for the Task Force’s priorities going forward were formulated; the contribution that ALPARC can potentially make to protected Alpine areas and for the Alpine Convention were defined; and an action plan and communication strategy were hammered out. It clearly emerged from this meeting that the time is ripe for ALPARC to make its presence felt and take action to ensure that the organization has a major say in future decisions.
This past July an extensive meeting, which was attended by the focal point of the French delegation, was held with Mission Operationelle Transnationale (MOT) at their headquarters in Paris. MOT has extensive experience in providing support for the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation. The conclusion drawn by MOT based on an analysis of the arguments for and against the aforementioned option 2 (European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation) couldn’t be more unequivocal: establishment of a European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation for the Alpine Network of Protected Areas would be an extremely lengthy process and is totally unrealistic for myriad reasons.
As a result, at the request of the Future of ALPARC working group, at its 20 September 2011 meeting in Berchtesgaden, the International Steering Committee adopted a resolution advocating that options 1 and 3 be pursued as a single package. This resolution calls for establishment of an ALPARC association with robust attachment of the Alpine Network of Protected Areas to the organs of the Alpine Convention. Thus the basic thrust of the Zernez Resolution can be implemented, although not in its absolute form involving attachment to the Permanent Secretariat.
At is third session, the Task Force promulgated a three-pronged strategy for ALPARC: In addition to the protected Alpine areas, the regions should also become members of ALPARC and a memorandum of understanding (MOU) should be adopted that forms part of the Alpine Convention and its organs. The Task Force defined the followingpriority areas:
with a particular focus on youth in Alpine regions.
An initial survey sent to ALPARC member states concerning their attitudes and concerns as regards the thematic priorities of ALPARC going forward, as well as the financing options available to the organization, yielded no results. Hence the ALPARC president and director will be holding discussions over the next few months with various Alpine states and regions, based on a recommendation concerning the thrust of ALPARC’s efforts going forward. The outcome of these consultations will be a major determinant of the thrust of the recommendation that the International Steering Committee and ALPARC will submit to the Permanent Committee at its 49th meeting in May 2012.
ALPARC is swinging into action once more, by conducting an active dialogue with ALPARC member states concerning financing and other relevant matters. ALPARC is also founding a new association and has recommended close cooperation with the organs of the Alpine Treaty.
Bruno Stephan Walder, vice chairman of the ALPARC International Steering Committee
Structuring a network comprising hundreds of institutions and protected-area administrators is a daunting task. This probably explains why ALPARC has achieved such great success as a kind of informal communal undertaking, albeit one that is also a de facto organization.
The new strategy entailing greater cooperation and integration with the Alpine Convention organisms, and at the same time greater independence as an association, aims to structure the existing organization from a legal standpoint. To this end, the growing number of projects and queries coming from the protected areas will be coordinated more efficiently. The sole valid legal status that such a communal undertaking can lay claim to is that of an association (in the legal sense of the term).
But as there is no type of association – for example under European law – that would be a better fit with ALPARC’s international structure, ALPARC’s International Steering Committee recommends that the founding meeting of the “ALPARC Association” should be held during the next Alpine week and at the 12th Alpine Conference in Switzerland . This would enable representatives of a maximum number of internationally active protected Alpine areas to gather with the aim of pooling their goals, energy and resources. A well structured network of active members (national representatives included) from throughout the Alpine region would serve the cause of productive cooperation and would open up a broader-based financing stream.
We call upon all protected areas to actively participate in the foundation meeting of the ALPARC association on 4 September 2012 in Val Poschavio, Switzerland. This founding meeting and general meeting of the network will also provide an opportunity for all concerned to discuss the underlying themes of ALPARC and to collaboratively develop key ALPARC projects going forward. It is vital that we strengthen this newly established network together. But to do this, the various protected areas simply must do their share – which means the following: lobbying local and regional political decision makers; disseminating information in the relevant regions, cantons and states concerning the collaborative efforts that the protected areas have been engaged in over the past 16 years, and the fruits these efforts have borne; doing PR concerning the importance of protected areas for the entire Alpine region and the role that each of the various protected areas play in the network; and proactively helping to find sources of financing for joint projects and events.
The financial burden of the joint activities in protected Alpine areas has been borne in its entirety so far by France and its alpine regions Rhone-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur, as well as by project-specific support from Germany, Switzerland, Monaco, Liechtenstein and private sponsors (MAVA Foundation, Heidehof Stiftung). Moreover, since 2003 the city of Chambéry has generously made the relevant infrastructure available free of charge to the Task Force Protected Areas at Maison des parcs et de la Montagne. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our French partners for their generous assistance.
But the time has come to establish a more robust platform that will foster international cooperation and development of the resources needed for it, in keeping with the slogan, Alpine Protected Areas: Together for the Alps!
The network belongs to its members; do you work for or within a protected Alpine area?
Alparc is yours!
During this period of transition and evolution, it is up to you to (re)appropriate this network able to connect parks, ideas and enthusiastic and captivating people.
We invite as many of you as can to come to the next General Assembly on 4th September 2012 at Val Poschiavo (CH) to take part actively in the creation of the Alparc association.
In order to support Alparc in its process of evolution, present the value of this network and convince political policy-makers and new financial backers to support the protected Alpine areas, we are launching an appeal for testimonials!
A page on the ALPARC website presents the proposals of the network’s instigators: experiences, messages of support, arguments, memories, anecdotes… show what the Alpine Network of Protected Areas can provide for the staff of national parks and nature reserves in the Alps, especially with regard to their daily work: see here for the first reports .
We appeal to you: tell us of your experience with Alparc, and what the network (its meetings, its instruments and its publications…) have given you.
There are two ways to do this:
THANK YOU!
* *Alparc working languages = French, German, Italian, Slovene, English
What does ALPARC mean to you? What does international cooperation between protected Alpine areas bring you? These are the questions we have already asked some of you.
Apart from being perceived as a means to share experience and methods, a tool for putting together and guiding shared projects, ALPARC is also seen as a network that leads to greater openness and reciprocal enrichment… and it’s also a source of ideas, of renewal and a special approach!
ALPARC is… “putting together and implementing an interesting project together, but [also] meeting colleagues from other parks, sharing experiences, making discoveries, visiting other park offices […]; we broaden our knowledge base, which benefits our daily activities, which makes it two or three times as interesting!” PS
“For me, what’s important is having contacts and exchanges with other managers of protected areas. Before Alparc, our contacts, for example, were largely limited to our own country, and 20 years ago we had few contacts even with our neighbour, the Italian national park of the Stelvio, which seems unbelievable today.” HH
ALPARC is… “the actual existence of a collective intelligence, with the pleasure of being to think all together”. CD
“ALPARC also often sets up initiatives to take steps or implement projects that parks could never realise individually. The forces and means are shared. […] The shared projects that can only be done by a group of parks makes it possible not to have to reinvent the wheel.” HH
“Together with other partners, Alparc in this regard [ecological networks laid the first decisive stone to assure a modern protection of nature in the Alps.” HH
ALPARC is a matter of meeting: “which gives us new ideas and needed energy, not to do the same, but to innovate, to process new concepts and reinvent our own projects!” CD
ALPARC offers…”exchanges and cultural references enabling us to do our work better” GM
ALPARC offers… “a broader vision of what protecting nature means […]; for me, it’s an everyday thing now to work with other Alpine parks [and] I feel myself truly Alpine.” GM
ALPARC offers… “A broadness of approach that is beneficial and a real exchange of information. In a word, I would say that ALPARC is a trigger.” GM
Within the ALPARC network, “the protected areas work and rally together for the Alps!” HH
Extracts of testimonials from:
- CD: Claude Dautrey, Director of the Reception & Communication service, National Park Ecrins, France
- HH: Heinrich Haller, Director of the Swiss National Parc.
- GM: Guido Meeus, Environmental education service, National Park Vanoise, France
- PS: Pascal Saulay, Head of “Multimedia” service, National Park Ecrins, France
whom we wish to thank most warmly! Their full testimonials can be seen by clicking on the link.
mountain.TRIP, financed within the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union, had its final conference at the 17th of November.
The project goal is to provide accessible and understandable forms of research-based information relevant to sustainable development in mountain regions to stakeholders, end-users and practitioners. mountain.TRIP will start where other EU projects have finished, translating research findings into useful information and developing relationships between users and researchers.
After 2 years trying to close the gap between researchers and practitioners in the context of sustainable mountain development, the project is now finished
and all its information and communication tools are online available at www.mountaintrip.eu .
In the beginning of october 2011, the first general meeting of the newly founded association “Nationalpark Austria ” took place in the Austrian Thayatal National Park . This umbrella organisation of the Austrian national parks has set its priority in the development of the cooperation in-between the national parks.
This objective, next to other, will be achieved through the dynamic development of the national parks in Austria and the implementation of the “Austrian National park strategy ”, which was realised in collaboration with the ministry of life .
Erich Mayrhofer, the director of the Kalkalpen National Park , became the president. His representative is Peter Rupitsch, from the National Park in Kärnten .
For further information, please read the press release.
The Adamello Park covers an area of about 510 square kilometres on the Lombard side of the Adamello massif and along the valleys that descend from it as far as the Oglio river in Valle Camonica in the Province of Brescia.
The Park stands within the administrative areas of 19 Municipalities. About 6,000 people live within its limits. The running of the Park has been entrusted by the Lombardy Region to the Comunità Montana di Valle Camonica (Valle Camonica Territorial Community), based at Breno, which is where the Park’s administrative and technical offices are also located.
The feature that impressively dominates the higher part of the Adamello is the presence of glaciers. Because of current climate change and the consequent retreat of glaciers in mountains throughout the world, leading to their reduction or even disappearance, the Adamello glacier has lost the imposing size it had at the start of the 18th century, but the spectacle it offers today is nevertheless awe-inspiring: the Adamello glacier is up to 250 metres deep.
The conditions of relative isolation and impenetrability of the Park’s northern valleys encourage the presence of fine and interesting fauna: ibex and chamois, red and roe deer, rock ptarmigan, black grouse and golden eagles live on the most inaccessible ledges and in the best-preserved parcels of forest. And bears too increasingly frequent the Park’s valleys, having extended their range from the neighbouring Adamello Brenta Park in the Trento Region, where they have been reintroduced. It is to be expected that wolves and lynxes will soon be reappearing too.
About 40% of the Park is covered in wood and forest.
The most important forest on the Lombard side of the Adamello massif comprises a wide variety of species and conformations, influenced more by the slopes on which they grow and by the climate than by the composition of the soil or by human activity.
Within the Park, some drying houses and storerooms for chestnuts are still used and can often be visited, and there are also watermills where the chestnuts used to be ground to make flour.
The Valle Camonica is also famous for offering the greatest European concentration of prehistoric rock carvings: thousands of rocks carved over a period of over 6,000 years offer an account of the life of the Camunni people who lived in the valley in pre-Roman times.
The Valle Camonica is this too: nature and culture fused together to form a site of extraordinary importance right in the heart of the Alps, a “World heritage site” that remains to be discovered and valued to the full by many citizens of Europe.
Text by: Dario Furlanetto, Director of the Adamello NaturalPark
Park details |
|
Name of protected area |
 |
|
Managing enterprise (if different) |
Comunità montana di Valle Camonica |
|
Country |
Italy |
|
Area (ha) |
51.000 ha |
|
Year of creation |
1983 |
|
UICN category |
V |
|
Legal basis |
Regional Park |
|
Regions concerned |
Lombardy |
|
Number of municipalities |
19 |
|
Lowest point (m) |
m 390 |
|
Highest point (m) |
m 3539 |
|
Population |
6.000 inhabitants |
|
Forest surface area |
Ha 15.600 |
|
Glacier surface area |
Ha 15.000 |
|
Pasture surface area |
Ha 4.380 |
|
Prevailing landscape types |
Deciduous and coniferous forest |
|
Emblematic fauna |
Ibex, chamois, bear, golden eagle, eagle owl, Western capercaillie, black grouse, rock ptarmigan, rock partridge. |
|
Emblematic flora |
Pinus uncinata, Pinus cembra, Genziana puntata, Primula daonensis, Leontopodium alpinum, Campanula raineri, Vaccinum microcarpum, Lycopodiella inondata, Andromeda polifonia, Drosera angelica, Artemisia genepì, Cypripedium calceolus. |
|
Major tourist attractions |
Ponte di Legno - Tonale ski area, Prehistoric rock carvings of Capo di Ponte and at Unesco 94 site, Boario Spa. |
|
Information centre(s) (number, name, themes) |
Vezza d’Oglio, Via Nazionale 132 – postcode 25059 - tel 0364/76165 |
|
Internet site |
|
|
Number of employees |
9 people |
|
Access BY CAR |
from Milan, take the SS 42 road to Passo del Tonale; from Bolzano, take the SS 42 to the Passo del Tonale; from Brescia, take the SP 510 as far as Pisogne, then continue on the SS 42. |
The triple crisis - ecologically, economically and socially - running through our society, causes concrete utopias, which overtake dreams and speeches to anchor in the action. The field trip «eco-responsible constructions» organised by Alparc and CIPRA from 2 to 4 November to the alpine region on the shore of the Bodensee, has majestically pointed out the way to go.
The priority of the visited projects was to recover the way of “territorial cohesion” between human being and its environment – natural, social and cultural.
The learned lesson is motivating: To initiate the citizen to become (again) local players in their milieu, to concentrate on local projects with the aim to upgrade local resources and know-how, to combine sobriety and effectiveness for a growing autonomy in the field of renewable energies, water, waste, but also agriculture and nutrition.
Visits, meetings and exchange have allowed us to feel, with our fingertips, the key to an eco-responsible future in the field of building and construction industry, which uses the major part of our resources.
To generalise a holistic approach throughout the creation of interdisciplinary connections between architecture and spatial planning.
To activate all local players for participating in projects; those who place the orders (representative, official and private contractors), those who design (architects, urban planners, landscape planners, employees in planning offices, consulting engineers) and those who realise (companies, craftsmen).
To benefit from the collective intelligence: to mix the consciousness of the local experts’ know-how with the consciousness of experts and researchers, to connect knowledge and competence, to share experiences (positive and negative ones) and to impart them for advancing together in a creative empathy.
To listen to a project description in two voices, one of an architect from Vorarlberg and the other from his building owner, about their commun realisation, shows that it is possible to combine mutual ambition and individual modesty.
The way to a desirable future demands redefining the society’s values, detecting a new sense and to produce new relationships.
The new technologies require to become known and to be dominated, but the future goes on by the human beings, and not by the technics!
dominique gauzin-müller
Please find at the following links:
also the travel booklet
and a photo selection
|
Under this link you can download the first newsletter of the HABIT-CHANGE project. This issue is dedicated to the project work until the mid-term. Since dissemination of results will become more important in the second half of the running time the upcoming issues are going to focus on that. You are welcome to distribute this e-mail to colleagues, who might be interested in subscribing to the newsletter too. We wish you a pleasant reading! PS: If you do not wish to receive further e-mails regarding our newsletter please send an e-mail with the text 'unsubscribe' back. |
During an international workshop held in the Chartreuse Regional Park (France) from 13-15 October 2011, more than 30 experts from science and parks management across Europe discussed the role of mountain protected areas in regional development.
The discussion was based on the input of selected experts from Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Austria who have a well recognized reputation in the area of protected areas. According to the experts´statements possible economic issues of protected areas are mainly linked to added values generated by park tourism, as proved by a large range of scientific studies. In future, research has to investigate more than so far on further economic opportunities generated by parks (ecosystem and cultural services etc.), on the involvement of regional stakeholders (perception, acceptance, multi-level governance etc.) and on regional change management (adaptive measures, scenarios in the light of climate change, demographic change etc.).
The workshop was jointly organised by ISCAR (International Scientific Committee on Alpine Research), ALPARC (Network for Alpine Protected Areas) coordinated by the Task Force Protected areas of the Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention and NeReGro (Network Regional Development and Protected Areas). Major results will be published 2012in eco.mont - Journal on Protected Mountain Areas Research and Management.
More information: http://www.iscar-alpineresearch.org/workshop2011/
Under the umbrella of the ECONNECT project , during three years, 16 international partners worked towards extending and protecting the Alpine ecological network. The results of their work were presented in Berchtesgaden, Germany, from 26th to 28th September 2011.
Ecological connectivity, namely the way how habitats are physically connected and the level of ease for movement of the species, is a theme of real topical interest, since it is fundamental for an effective conservation of biodiversity: many species and most of ecological functions, in fact, require much larger areas than those available within park boundaries.
Within the ECONNECT project , since 2009 ALPARC and 15 other partners analysed the issue of ecological connectivity in the Alps both from functional (presence of barriers such as motorways and dams) and legal (differences and contradictions among different legislative systems which could limit the creation of an ecological network) points of view.
A solid methodology to identify the key corridors and physical barriers, even “invisible”, which could threaten the connectivity, has been developed. It has also been created a useful mapping tool to visualise barriers and corridors, which can illustrate the concept of ecological connectivity for policy makers and planners. In addition, in seven pilot regions solutions for enhancing connectivity were carried out in field.
The results of this experience, maturated in three years of work, were presented at the Final Conference of ECONNECT, which took place from 26th to 28th September in Berchtesgaden (D). The conference had great success from the point of view of both participation and possible future developments.
Indeed, it was the occasion to suggest innovative ways of protecting our Alpine natural heritage and provided a forum for discussing ways to place ecological connectivity firmly on the European political agenda, thanks also to the introduction of recommendation policies for politic decision-makers about how to convert degraded and fragmented alpine ecosystems into a healthy ecological network.
The subject is of great topical interest: how can we assure a larger effectiveness of the alpine protected areas’ management measures? How can we monitor the effectiveness during the time?
An increasing number of protection authorities as ministries and local communities request to protected areas managers a veritable evaluation, in terms of effectiveness, of their management measures. Some large organisations, such as IUCN and the Council of Europe (European Diploma of Protected Areas ), dealt with this topic at the level of protected areas.
This project gets in the framework of the meetings and reflections of the working group of the Alpine Network of Protected Areas (ALPARC) concerning the topic of management measures evaluation by comparing their effectiveness at international level. Thanks to the support of the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) and the collaboration with the Swiss Parks Network , the Alpine Network of protected Areas could develop a first version of a catalogue of indicators addressed to protected areas managers. This catalogue (CIME_1), with a first selection of 25 recommended indicators, aims for being a simple and functional application tool.
Each one of the 25 recommended indicators is described in a factsheet where amongst other things are specified:
The suggested approach, which relies on methodologies standardised at international level, has been developed within exchanges and needs expressed by managers themselves during different meetings, in order to create an easy, pertinent and effective tool! In addition, a steering group, constituted by representatives of FOEN, Swiss Parks Network, Swiss Academy of Sciences , Entlebuch Biosphere Reserve and ALPARC, permitted the progress and the summary of scripts pursuant to the workshops.
CIME_1, available in English and in the 4 alpine languages, has to be tested so that it is possible to proceed on its evaluation and improvement.
Are you a manager of an alpine protected area?
Don’t hesitate to use it in your ordinary practices, as both evaluation tool and log.
Send us your opinion and remarks! They would be very useful to refine the catalogue!
Based on interviews with 21 alpine protected areas, the report “Renewable energies in Alpine protected areas” shows the conflicts between the protection and the use regarding the production of renewable energies as well as possible strategies. The study has been elaborated by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences (SAS) with the support of the Alpine Network of Protected Areas (ALPARC) and has been funded by the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN).
In the parks, which have been analysed, the majority of conflicts is caused by wind and water power. Regarding the use of water power, the more severe legislation will reduce the potential for conflicts in particular what concerns residual flow, hydro-peaking and river dynamics. Furthermore, the increasing demands lead to new conflicts. Wind turbines generally encounter resistance from landscape conservation organisations. The potential conflict of photovoltaic and biomass is currently lower; however, it will probably grow with the increasing demand for renewable energies.
There is no remedy that applies to all parks, it’s depending on the potential of conflicts and the need for action varies. Thus, only some of the parks would prefer stricter rules and the question about energy targets or concepts are judged differently. Regardless of the path that a park chooses to follow, it will be unavoidable to deal with the topic.
The report, available in a trilingual uncutted version and a concise version in German, French or Italian, can be downloaded at: