Europe’s protected areas – its national parks, nature parks, and biosphere reserves – play a vital role in safeguarding the continent’s nature, its wildlife and landscapes. They protect Europe’s most special places: relatively untouched landscapes, as well as those which have been shaped by centuries of man’s interaction with the land. They offer refuge to the species and ecosystems which represent the very basis of future life. And they help to preserve the natural beauty of Europe in all its variety for us to experience and enjoy. They are our life-support system
Helping protected areas to fulfil this role, encouraging cooperation and exchange between protected area staff, and promoting their aims and work across Europe is the purpose of the EUROPARC Federation. We fulfil our aims though a large variety of activities which you can read about in these pages. Use the menu to the right or the links below to find out more.
We continue to award three new Alfred Toepfer Scholarships to young conservationists and the Alfred Toepfer Medal to an individual who has shown particular committment to Europes protected areas each year. We also continue to promote the European Day of Parks each May and host our successful annual conference every autumn.
Our key aims in EUROPARC are to:
- Promote good practice in the management of protected areas
- Facilitate the establishment of new protected areas
- Raise the profile of protected areas as a vital means of safeguarding many of the continent’s most valuable natural heritage assets, and thereby to increase support for their future protection
- Influence the future development of public policies and programmes, especially with the European Union, to the benefit of protected areas’ objectives.
For 2012 there are a number of outstanding projects that the EUROPARC Federation will be supporting which we are waiting to hear about. We also hope to have many new developments in those projects mentioned above.
Keep up-to-date with our activities by reading our monthly e-news.