The Ecological Continuum Initiative / 2006-2010

Since 2002, a consortium of four major Alpine organizations (ALPARC- The Alpine Network of Protected Areas; CIPRA - the International Commission for the Protection of the Alps ; ISCAR - the International Scientific Committee Alpine Research – the WWF European Alpine Programme) carried out activities to further the conservation and sustainable use of Alpine biodiversity. The consortium introduced a completely new approach to Alpine nature conservation by looking at biodiversity from an Alpine-wide (as opposed to national or regional) perspective.

The Ecological Continuum Initiative takes this approach one step further; a new initiative started in 2007 and financed by the Swiss MAVA Foundation for Nature. Its aim is to create or restore ecological connectivity between areas that are important for nature conservation.

The Ecological Continuum Initiative lays the foundation for the long-term implementation of a coherent ecological network in the Alps. The partners' work focuses on the three following targets:

• Initiating, promoting and mentoring activities: their work and commitment led to the establishment of the Platform "Ecological Network" of the Alpine Convention and the ECONNECT project.
• Providing know-how: a harmonized methodology for all of the Alps, a catalogue of potential measures and a databank of publications and information on relevant projects as well as experts available to help representatives of protected areas, public authorities and environmental organizations in their implementation of activities.
• Awareness-building: the partners' work is in part dedicated to convincing decision-makers of the importance of Alpine-wide habitat connectivity and to persuade people to make their own contributions to ecological networking.

Links:

Alpine Ecological Network: This website is dedicated on the one hand to the "Ecological Continuum Initiative" of the Consortium ALPARC/CIPRA/ISCAR and on the other hand to the platform "Ecological network" of the Alpine Convention. It offers a list of publications and events on this topic as well as a search engine to find Alpine experts in different thematic fields related to ecological networks.