The Charter at EUROPARC 2009

During an official Award Ceremony for the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas the new signatories to the Charter as well as the reevaluated Charter Areas received their Charter Certificates from the EUROPARC president Erika Stanciu. The Ceremony took place at the EUROPARC Conference 2009 in Strömstad, Sweden together with around 200 EUROPARC members from all over Europe.

Over the last one to two years, 17 European protected areas have been working with the Charter. That means, they have made a thorough assessment of their area.  They have invited and brought together people from different areas of activities in the region, like local communities, tourism businesses and schools with the aim of jointly developing a strategy for the area, a strategy that is individually tailored to the strengths, uniqueness and needs of each protected area. They have set up action plans including many innovative and creative activities according to the Charter principles and linked to the. These activities will be jointly implemented with their local partners over the next five years.

• Clwydian Range AONB (UK)
• Cornwall AONB (UK)
• Parco Alto Garda Bresciano (I)
• Parque Natural Alto Tajo (E)
• Parque Natural de Andújar (E)
• Parque Nacional de Cabañeros (E)
• Parque Natural de Montesinho (P)
• Parque Natural  do Douro Internacional (P)
• Parque Natural  do Alvão (P)
• Weerribben-Wieden National Park (NL)
• Parc naturel régional Volcans d'Auvergne (F)
• Parc naturel régional du Verdon (F)
• Parc naturel régional des Alpilles (F)
• Parque Natural Hoces del Río Riaza (E)
• Reserva Natural Valle de Iruelas (E)
• Parque Regional Sierra de Gredos (E)
• Monumento Natural de Ojo Guareña (E)

Three protected areas from the UK, Portugal and Spain have taken their Charter process a step further and have successfully re-novated their commitment to sustainable tourism development for another five years. This process included an auto-evaluation of the successes but also of the weaknesses and future challenges of their strategy and action plan as well as the re-strengthening of the links with the local stakeholders in the Sustainable Tourism Forums.

• Espacio Natural de la Sierra Nevada (E)
• Parque Nacional Peneda-Gerês (P)
• Mourne AONB (UK)

All these protected areas have done invested a lot of time and energy into this process and have done excellent work and they were successfully evaluated by the EUROPARC Federation.

From the EUROPARC Federation we would like to congratulate all those protected areas for their great achievements in the area of sustainable tourism development!

Please find more information and photos from the protected areas in the document "Award Ceremony 2009"

Charter Side-Meeting

On Thursday evening a Charter Side-Meeting was held with around 40 participants representing Charter Areas, Charter Candidates and other interested protected areas and organisations. After a short presentation about the Charter and the challenges for the future, Lasse Loven from Metsähallitus presented the INTERREG IVC project PESTO for which a proposal was submitted end of January 2009. Martin Carey from the Mourne AONB then gave an interesting overview of his experience with the implementation of the Charter, the reevaluation process and the benefits it has brought to the protected area and the local population.

All presentations can be downloaded on this site.