Call for short presentations – measuring the impact of people in periurban parks

The natural spaces around our major urban places are vital green lungs for city dwellers as well as important features of the landscape.  The pressures these greenspaces are under can be immense with multi-use visitation (trekking, mountain bikes and other sports events) that can damage ecosystems.

In order to make informed decisions on how to better address the issue of visitors’ impacts, the PERIURBAN Commission is organising a workshop during the EUROPARC Annual Conference, which will examine different methodologies to measure the impact of visitors, ranging from the classical concept of carrying capacity to the newest ones as limits of acceptable change and other methodologies, with a special emphasis on key environmental impact areas  such as loss of vegetation cover and soil erosion. In addition, practical prevention recommendations will be provided.

If you are thinking of attending the Annual Conference and you have an experience or good practice on this topic you would like to share with other managers and technicians, please contact Teresa Pastor at t.pastor@europarc.org before the 31st of May, suggesting a title of your contribution and few lines of what will be it about.

During the Conference, there will be other opportunities for exchanging and networking, such as the Speakers Corner and the Marketplace.  These are great opportunities to disseminate the projects you are involved in.