Meet our new members from Spain, Denmark and Albania

Spain

Collserola nature park

The magnificent Serra de Collserola massif rises up over Barcelona Metropolitan Area, almost touching the city. It is a much-loved and immensely valuable periurban natural area and a great privilege for the huge population that lives around these mountains.

Collserola is a well-preserved, 8,000-hectare natural area in which forest predominates but which also includes a variety of other plant formations that provide a habitat for valuable biological diversity. 

Collserola is also a place for discovery and learning, a place for meeting and for leisure. All this means that the final goal of the Park Consortium’s management policy is to promote environmentally friendly and sustainable use of the reserve whilst also conserving the natural heritage it contains.

The landscape we see in Collserola today is the result of gradual changes to its original make up, which was formed entirely by environmental conditions, though it has been intensively transformed over the centuries.

Serra has been used for agriculture, with the construction of terraces and the planting of vines, and for forestry, with management of the woods.

Today, agriculture has almost completely disappeared from the area, and forestry management activities have also greatly decreased. 

The great natural space formed by the Serra de Collserola has been very important in shaping the metropolitan landscape for three important reasons: 

• its size, as Collserola represents more than half of the open space in the metropolitan area.
  

  Collserola nature park
  Vall de les feixes
  Autor Robert Peña

• its central situation surrounded by townships, cities and communication networks.
  

  Collserola nature park
  Ermita La Salut del Papiol
  Autor Robert Peña

• the high degree of “naturalness” that it conserves, despite the pressures from the great city. 

Collserola plays an important role not only in terms of ecology, but also the landscape, as its relief turns the Serra into a superb viewpoint over the surrounding cities and towns, and makes nature a presence in the urban scenery.

Denmark

Council of Frederikshavn

The municipality is located in the northern part of Denmark. It is the 7th biggest administrator of nature areas in Denmark (out of 98 municipalities). This part of the country is characterized by nature, agriculture, sports, tourism and 86 kilometres of the coastline. There you can find big areas of dunes, hillsides, forests and rivers. There are also 356 protected ancient monuments.

The area around Skagen is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Europe. Therefore, the municipality is one of the most visited tourist destinations in Denmark, which means that they are working a lot on combining protection and use of nature.

Albania

Albanian Alps Alliance

Network “Albanian Alps Alliance” represents a union of non-governmental organizations operating in Shkodra, active in the field of environmental protection and biodiversity, tourism development and community mobilization.

The vision of the network is:

Alps – invaluable asset of natural and ethnocultural values that must be protected and inherited through generations.

The mission of the Network is to contribute to sustainable environmental and socio- development economic of the Alps through public awareness, involvement of local communities in decision-making and promoting the natural, environmental and traditional values.

Would you like to know more about The EUROPARC Federation and our members, or even become one? Visit our page and get all the information you need.