Il Parco Nazionale della Majella nella Rete Europea PAN Parks
(founded by WWF e Molecaten)
On November 4th 2005 in Edinburgh,
inside “Our Dynamic Earth” and
during the Conference “PAN Parks
Europe Wilderness Days”, Zoltan Kun
(Executive Director of PAN Parks
Foundation) gave Nicola Cimini (Director
of Majella National Park) the admittance
certification to the “PAN Parks”
European Network. The official award
ceremony was held in Pescara on December
13th 2005, at the Province Building – in
the hall called “Figlia di Iorio” (Iorio’s
Daughter). Therefore the Park (awarded
first park in Western Europe and in the
Mediterranean Area, while eighth in
Europe) succeeded to gain this
acknowledgement, which is solely
assigned to the wilderness areas with a
remarkable naturalistic value and
enhanced management standards even about
the development strategies for
sustainable tourism.
PAN Parks is a no-profit foundation
created in 1997 on the International WWF
initiative in cooperation with the Dutch
tourism company Molecaten. Basically,
the Foundation goal is to ensure the
preservation of the European natural
heritage through the creation of
incentive pays. Shortly, by supporting a
series of cooperation between local
authorities or partners and economic
subjects able to put in practice
patterns of sustainable tourism..
Summing up, these are the tasks:
- Creating a network of protected areas with
remarkable naturalistic value and a management of
high-quality level;
- Promoting a wider knowledge about these areas,
thought as natural European legacy;
- Regarding these areas as main destinations
for naturalists in search of high-grade tourism;
- Increasing public and political backed
activities for the benefit of the protected areas,
enhancing their economic values;
- Encouraging the creation of new working
opportunities in the marginal areas.
In other words the Foundation aims to increase the
management effectiveness in the protected areas and to
improve the knowledge and the image of biodiversity in
Europe, contributing to ensure a long run survival of
the undamaged environments in pace with the local
economic development, promoting the preservation of
wilderness areas, conceiving sustainable tourism
strategies inside and outside the protected areas,
fuelling the awareness of European naturalistic areas
and the pride toward them.
WHY MAJELLA
It is easy to understand that Majella National Park
wanted so much to become a member of PAN Parks Network.
From the beginning, the Park Authority was in tune with
the Foundation purposes, sharing both guiding principles
and plans of action in order to achieve these goals:
environment preservation, sustainable management and
exploitation of the territory, all of which have to be
jointly developed. The awareness of managing such an
important portion of territory endowed with high-grade
naturality (that can be found in very few areas of
Western Europe, perhaps in no other places of the
Mediterranean Europe at all) and the understanding of
facing with an innovative experience – carried out by a
remarkably experienced institution, truly committed to
the fulfilment of set targets, independent and strict
about the evaluations - represented for our Company an
additional stimulus.
The certification process of Majella National Park has
officially begun on May 2005, with the agreement to
start the Check Procedure. This is a lengthy and hard
procedure, in the care of independent comptrollers,
appointed by PAN Parks and selected between the main
experts in the environmental field. First they follow
out documents concerning the management features and
practices on the protected area and then carry out a
thorough field research. Alexander Zinke from Austria
and Juan Herrero from Spain were the experts in charge
of checking the Majella National Park, being assisted by
the biologist Franco Mari as a local expert. The
inspection also involved the Check Procedure Director,
Vladivoj Vancura. The comptrollers visit took place on
September 2005 and it was carried out not only to screen
natural environment in the Park, but also offices,
accommodation facilities and reception standards for
visitors. The comptrollers demanded to meet President,
Director and staff of the Park Authority, as well as a
considerable number of reception professionals. Probably
most of them will establish in the near future the first
group of local partners, building up a high-grade
network of structures and services for visitors. Another
facet the comptrollers dealed with was the surveillance
matter: for this reason some meetings took place with
the Land Board for the Environment and with the Forest
Rangers operating inside the Park territory. The
checking outcomes were more than positive, so that the
certificate was issued without any further fulfilments.
The PAN Parks Certification of “Wilderness Area”
essentially requires the respect of five guiding
principles:
- Principle 1. First of all, the nominated area
must own at least 10.000 hectares of territory
eligible as “Wilderness Area”, that is an area with
the least amount of human alterations.
- Principle 2. The management of protected area
must aim to the preservation and, if necessary, to
the restoration of natural and ecological processes
of the territory.
- Principle 3. The management of the protected
area must provide its visitors with highly
pleasurable experiences based on the appreciation of
natural values.
- Principle 4. The Protected Area Authority and
its local partners must build a development strategy
for sustainable tourism.
- Principle 5. The enterprises working as
partners must commit themselves to achieve the
purposes settled for the protected area, and must
cooperate to put in practice the strategy as
mentioned in the 4th Principle.
The Check Procedure goes through different controlling
levels. The overall procedure takes about three years
from submission date. In the first step the presence of
requirements stated in the 1st and 3rd Principles is
under evaluation (made at workbench and on field by PAN
Parks experts). After that, the protected area must
create a local group of professionals involved in the
project ( the Park Authority, as well as the Local
Government Authorities, field experts, associations etc).
This group has to develop a strategy for the sustainable
tourism in the area (4th Principle) and to detect the
economic partners as stated in 5th Principle. This
strategy will be then evaluated by PAN Parks
comptrollers, while the local group coordinator have to
assess the economic partners. As we said before, only
eight European protected areas, belonging to seven
different countries, have achieved the certification
today, at least concerning the 1st and 3rd principles.
These countries are: Poland, Sweden, Finland, Bulgaria,
Romania, Russia and now, with Majella National Park,
Italy too.Click
here for nominating your business
