Awards and grants

Alfred Toepfer Award

The Alfred Toepfer Medal, named after the founder of the EUROPARC Federation, Dr h.c. Alfred Toepfer (1894-1993) is awarded annually in recognition of a particular individual's service to the nature and national parks of Europe. The medal is presented at the annual EUROPARC conference.

This year the winner of the Medal was the retired Romanian forester Mr Walter Frank who was nominated by EUROPARC Germany for his fantastic work with Romania's ancient beech forests. In the Laudatio given by Dr Johannis Hager Mr Frank's dedication to the protection of these forests was emphasised. Dr Hager stated that Mr Frank's "continuous contributions to the Romanian forestry administration Romsilva and to the corresponding government as well as to the IUCN in Geneva meant that around 2600 ha of valuable natural and ancient forest in this area was placed under protection by the Government and encompassed into the NATURA 2000 network".

After accepting his medal Walter Frank said that he felt a great honour to be receiving the medal and that the medal was worth giving to the area of natural secular, virgin and semi-virgin Rusca Montana forest "referred to as an undiscovered treasure at the heart of the Poiana Rusca Mountains". He stressed the need to protect a larger area of the forest stating that only 1575 ha (23%) are under legal protection [...]. Another 4055 ha have been exploited, or will be destroyed in the near future. Only a further 1235 ha remains intact".

The EUROPARC Federation wishes Herr Frank success in the fight for the protection of these forests and offer the support of the Federation in that campaign.

The Laudatio from Dr Hager and Mr Franks speech can be read in full below.

Alfred Toepfer Scholarships

Each year the EUROPARC Federation awards three Alfred Toepfer Natural Heritage Scholarships to promising young conservationists with practical experience in the field of conservation and in the work of protected areas. The scholarships will enable them to undertake a study visit to one or more protected areas in another European country and to gather experience which will be of benefit in their future careers. The awards will each be worth EUR 3000,- and are generously donated for the twelfth consecutive year by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation in Hamburg (D). They are presented to the scholarship winners each year at the annual EUROPARC conference (www.new.europarc.org/what-we-do/our-annual-events).

This year the scholarships were awarded to Rachel Bland (UK), who will study fire management in protected areas as well as examine marine protected areas in Greece, David Rodriguez (S), will visit the less well known country of Moldova and report back to us on their protected area management system and finally Razvan Deju (Ro) who will study Bison management in Poland with the aim of reintroducing them into Romania. We will publish news of their travels on the website and look forward to reading their reports on their return.

Last years scholarships went to Kveta Cernohlávková (CZ), Andrzej Ginalski (PL) and Stephan Krasser (A). Kveta visited protected areas in various countries and looked at the different kinds of Junior Ranger Programmes that have been implemented. Her report which summarises her findings can be downloaded below. The final reports from Andrzej and Stephan will be available to download soon.