New members of the ECST Evaluation Committee!
The European Charter for Sustainable Tourism (ECST) Evaluation Committee reviews all Protected Areas that apply. The committee is made up of sustainable tourism experts. In 2021 two new members joined.
The European Charter for Sustainable Tourism…
… is celebrating its 20 year anniversary in 2020! In these 20 years many Protected Areas have joined the programme to become sustainable tourism destinations. The ECST Evaluation Committee is the final “stop” on the road to becoming a Sustainable Tourism destination for Protected Areas. They evaluate the application and make the final recommendation to the EUROPARC Council whether an area should receive the Charter Award or not.
This year some changes happened within the Committee: Vittorio Ducoli and Chair Patrizia Rossi left. Richard Denman now is the new Chairman and two new members joined: Jimena Castillo and Tina Müller. You can get to know them a bit better here:
Jimena Castillo…
… was born in Costa Rica, but grow up in Honduras. As true “citizen of the world”, she has been living in Sweden since 2011. She studied Biology and Research Applied to Monitoring and Project Evaluation.
Throughout her career, she collected a combination of experiences within international cooperation, nonprofit organizations, and Governmental institutions.
Nowadays she works for the County Administrative Board of Scania as Environmental Projects Coordinator. She is responsible for the Certification Process of Kullaberg Nature Reserve as a Sustainable Tourism Destination, which is the first Protected Area certified by EUROPARC in Sweden.
Additionally, she is the Project Manager of “Together We Can”, a project designed to facilitate the implementation of the 5 years action plan for sustainable tourism. They are currently developing a very interesting model of cooperation with other governmental organizations, private and touristic sector and stakeholders.
Tina Müller…
… was born in Bern Switzerland and finished her first Master’s in economy, tourism and anthropology at the Universities of Bern and Berlin (Germany) in 2004. She did her anthropology field study on the Aborigines whilst travelling in Australia for a year.
After finishing her studies, she worked as a scientific assistant at the department of recreation and tourism at the University of Bern. Interested in the practical field of tourism, she changed jobs to become manager of Delémont’s youth hostel (French part of Switzerland). During that time, she finished her second Master’s in “Mediation of European Nature and Culture Heritage” at the University of Rennes (France).
Since 2010 she is the head of tourism and since 2016 Representative General Manager at the Swiss Parks Network where she is in charge of coordinating and developing tourism in the Swiss parks, as well as cooperations on a national and international level. Additionally, in 2016, Tina Müller received the “Tourism for Tomorrow Award” for the Swiss parks – a nomination for Best Practice destinations in sustainable tourism worldwide. In 2020, she was elected onto the board of the Swiss Tourism Federation.
EUROPARC wants to extend a warm welcome to Jimena and Tina. We are excited to have these Sustainable Tourism experts on board!
You can find the entire ECST Evaluation Committee here, however, please note that this page is still under construction.
