Dovrefjell National Park to be Norway's first charter park!

Being the last important step in the process of becoming a Charter Park Dovrefjell National Park (Norway) was visited by a verifier, appointed by EUROPARC Federation at the end of May 2010. Within the three days visit several interviews with the personnel of the national park and local stakeholders involved in tourism have been conducted to clarify whether the facts stated in the previous submitted application report are in-line with the given resources to put the plan into practice within the next five years.

In mid-June 2010 the evaluation committee met in Spain and decided that Dovrefjell has been awarded the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism as first Norwegian National Park. The Chairman of the Dovrefjell Council, Ola Røtvei was pleased as this award is yet another confirmation that the Council and National Park are on the right track.

Still, the Charter is the result of a long and thorough work of the Dovrefjell Council after it has taken the decision in 2005. Meanwhile the certification process has been a labour-intensive process, even more than expected in the beginning.

National funds were needed and granted to continue the process as Norwegian national parks in general have so limited funding and resources that a process like this, calculated at normal European conditions with dozens of employees per park, would be quite extensive for the administration of a Norwegian park.

Being a partner in the EU-funded project PARKS & BENEFITS, Dovrefjell National Park gained the necessary experience to manage the effort and is now a best practice example for the other six park partners on their way to achieve the Charter Park status. “Our work with other partners was of great value to us. As from the start we were time wise a bit ahead of the other partners, but the questions from the other partners as well as the checklists, structure and reports provided from animare were of great help before conducting and finalising our application reports” states the project manager for Dovrefjell National Park Area, Klaas van Ommeren. We are looking forward to help the other partners with their work towards their applications.

More information about the Parks and Benefits project at www.parksandbenefits.net.

More news from the project can be read in the projects third newsletter.