Sustainable Tourism - good for business, for protected areas, for Europe

EUROPARC Consulting is proud to be so closely associated with the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Area. The Charter and its process have been a resounding success for a decade now. To be a “chartered” protected area is to be part of a journey of development, a continuous quest for successful, sustainable sharing of these magical landscapes.

Carefully built from the ground up, after much shared thinking, the European Charter is an unrivalled process to help implement the concept of sustainable development in Europe’s most treasured places. Almost 80 protected areas in Europe have been awarded the Charter.

There is now also the Charter part II which has had a brilliant start in 2007. It helps create a close partnership between a protected area and local tourism businesses. Many of these local enterprises are so proud of their partnership with the protected area that they proudly display the signs of the partnership (see photo).

Defined as “development that meets the needs of present generations, without compromising the capacity of future generations to meet their needs”, sustainability involves the preservation of resources for future generations, viable economic development and equitable social development.

In order to promote the Charter and its aim of sustainable tourism,EUROPARC Consulting carries out every year the evaluation and verification of all the applications for European Charter status. We start in January with an assessment of the application dossier and appoint a trained sustainable-tourism expert who travels to the area in order to verify the protected area’s claims. The resulting thorough report is then submitted to the Charter’s Evaluation Committee in June each year. You can see the Committee in session on one of the photographs here.

After careful consideration, the Committee then awards the Charter (or not) and the the successful protected area will receive a certificate at the annual EUROPARC Conference.

This year, EUROPARC Consulting processed 14 applications for evaluation and re?evaluation and presented the reports to the meeting of the Evaluation Committee in La Garrotxa Nature Park in Catalonia. As always, it was a demanding process, but rewarding nevertheless. EUROPARC Consulting is looking forward to seeing the certificates, signed by the President of the EF, being handed over in Italy later this year. Our congratulations to all protected areas who had the Charter awarded or re?awarded to them.

Article from Wilf Fenten, Managing Director, EUROPARC Consulting