50 Years of EUROPARC

(Former) EUROPARC Presidents take the stage during the EUROPARC Conference 2023. Picture: PDF-Grafie

2023 marked the 50th Anniversary of the EUROPARC Federation. We celebrated this milestone throughout the year. Of course, we asked our members to join us!

50th Anniversary of the EUROPARC Federation

For 50 years, EUROPARC has been connecting People and Parks. With over 400 members and countless exchanges: EUROPARC has a vivid and rich history to look

Special 50 Years of EUROPARC anniversary logo.

back on. The very core of our organisation is, of course, our members. With our celebration, we wanted to highlight their story and the essential work our members are doing on the ground.

A lot has changed in Europe; in the Protected Area community; and at EUROPARC itself. Celebrating 50 years granted us the opportunity to look back, but also envision the future that Europe, and its nature, needs. A future in sync with nature, with Protected Areas as pioneers of nature protection, celebrated and respected by society.

Of course, our 50th Anniversary was a common thread throughout our Annual Conference. We honoured Herr Köpp with the Alfred Toepfer Medal, launched our Interactive Storybook, invited 14 young people to attend the Conference free of charge, brought together all (past) EUROPARC presidents, and much more.

Discover the EUROPARC Storybook

Voices from the membership

For our 50th Anniversary, we collected video messages from our members to hear what EUROPARC means to them. This resulted in a compilation video that we launched during the EUROPARC Conference 2023 award ceremony. Check it out here:

Video messages

You can also discover all messages submitted by members in this playlist:

Learn more about our rich history

To kickstart our celebrations, we visited someone who was at the very beginning of the EUROPARC Federation: Herr Köpp. He shared his inspirational story with us of how the first Protected Areas in Europe came together, despite political turmoil. Check it out here:

It is with great sadness, that EUROPARC has learned of the passing of Herr Köpp in June 2023. His contribution to the foundation of our organisation cannot be underestimated and we are incredibly grateful to still have had the chance to speak with him so fondly about those early years of the Federation. We dedicated the Alfred Toepfer Medal 2023 in his honour and his son, Matthias Köpp, accepted it on his behalf.

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