EUROPARC Federation

Non Profit ID card: present your project/organisation/campaign

–       Where are you based?

Bavaria, Germany

–       What are you called?

My name is Morwenna Parkyn and I work as the communications officer for a non-governmental organisation called The EUROPARC Federation.

–       What are you doing and why?

EUROPARC is an umbrella organisation for around 500 members across Europe all of which are involved somehow in the management and promotion of protected areas (national parks, regional parks, nature parks, Natura 2000 sites etc etc). We enable our members to exchange experience with each other, promote protected areas and their values and benefits for mankind on a regional, national and international level and carry out a number of programmes and projects which aid protected areas with their management, provide young conservationists with more skills and bring children into contact with these landscapes.

–       Do you have a website/email?

www.europarc.org

–       Do you have a Twitter/facebook link/name?

Not yet but we are thinking about Facebook

–       What makes you so special?

EUROPARC is special because it brings together so many people from the field of protected area management from across Europe. It facilitates the exchange of information between these members, which is especially important today where protected landscapes are facing similar challenges and have developed so many innovative ways of dealing with these. The global effects of things such as climate change mean that it is imperative for protected area practitioners to work together. Most problems affecting our natural surroundings know no borders.

The turning point

–       How did you start?

EUROPARC has been around now since 1973 and was started by a group of people who wanted to do more for nature protection across Europe. It was founded on the need to protect and enhance Europe’s natural and cultural protected areas.

–       What keeps you going every day?

The knowledge that the organisation is doing something worthwhile and important. Perhaps also the new challenges that we regularly have to face as well as the new focuses for nature protection that keep working for making such an organisation so interesting. Lastly, working with people from 39 European countries, which makes our work particularly exciting.

–       Who is your target?

Our target audience varies. It is mainly protected area managers, or organisations, governmental departments and individuals who work with and for these special places. We also target politicians at various levels and hope via our publications to pass on the importance of Europe’s natural heritage to a wider public.

–       How are you financed?

Partially by membership fees, by an EU Core grant and by funding from various organisations for particular projects.

 

The challenge

–       A proud moment?

Seeing around 300 protected area practitioners joined together at our annual conference every year discussing current topics, networking and working towards solutions together.

–       A problem you face?

Getting all of our members involved in what we do. There is a core of members who are very involved but there is also a large number who are more passive.

A second problem we face is getting politicians to become more aware of the importance of our protected landscapes. Our Brussels office is currently developing a lobbying strategy which will hopefully facilitate this process.

–       Your personal motto when things get hard?

‘Every cloud has a silver lining’ perhaps. For me it’s actually all about learning from my experiences and improving myself and the work I do from that. EUROPARC’s motto could be “Nature knows no boundaries” or “Two heads are better than one”.

–       Another cool project/organisation/campaign you would like to recommend?

Oh that’s hard to say. There are many good projects/organisations which have particularly to do with nature protection and sustainable development. Here are a few that come to mind:

–       The International Union for Nature Conservation (IUCN) or their World Commission on Protected Areas for an international view on nature conservation

–       SlowFood International

–       UNESCO world heritage

–       ALPARC

–       Eurosite

We also recommend contacting, visiting the websites of or actually going to any individual protected area in Europe. They all work very differently but are all fascinating places and the teams working for them tend to be extremely innovative so that they evolve many interesting ideas for nature protection.

www.europarc.org

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