europe's wilderness from 2008 to 5%
DESCRIPTION
I presented this during the Europarc 2012 annual conference. The presentation has two parts: 1) chronological view of how wilderness protection evolved between 2008 and 2012, 2) what PAN Parks is planning to contribute to wilderness protection in Europe in 2013 Enjoy reading and sharing it!TRANSCRIPT
Paanajärvi NP ©Viktor Gritsuk
Strengthening the protection of Europe’s wilderness from 2008 to 5%Zoltan Kun, Executive DirectorPAN Parks Foundation
Soomaa NP © Mati Kose
What happened between 2008-2012
Paanajärvi NP ©Viktor Gritsuk
What happened between 2008-2012
• Civil Society initiated a Resolution on Wilderness• submitted to EC• signed by over 100 organisations including Birdlife, Europarc, IUCN, PAN Parks, WWF
©iStock/Graeme Purdy
European Parliament special report on wilderness
• adopted on 3 February 2009
• provides a popular mandate as vaste majority approved
• follow-up needed now
What happened between 2008-2012
Majella NP © Barbara Mayer
What happened between 2008-2012
EC Presidency Conference in Prague, May 2009
• adopted the Agenda for Europe’s wilderness with 24 recommendations
• Policy
• Awareness building
• Information needs
• Supporting capacity
Majella NP © Bruno D’Amicis
What happened between 2008-2012
Wilderness Working Group chaired by Europarc
• participants from NGO sector and protected areas
• main focus on developing a wilderness definition
• finalised in April 2012 approved by EC in September
Wilderness definition
A wilderness is an area governed by natural processes. It is composed of native habitats and species, and large enough for the effective ecological functioning of natural processes. It is unmodified or only slightly modified and without intrusive or extractive human activity, settlements, infrastructure or visual disturbance.
Wilderness area
Wild areasToo small to be
wilderness
Other protected areas
All forms of PAs are contributing to biodiversity conservation!
Current stage of natural development (indicated by eg. IUCN category)
Non-intervention (current mgmt practice) intervention
Soomaa NP © Arne Ader
What happened between 2008-2012
EC Presidency Conference on wilderness restoration in Brussels November 2010
• announcing the inclusion of wilderness in EC 2020 Biodiversity Strategy
• announcing the development of a guidance document for N2000 managers
Borjomi-Kharagauli NP © Kote Gabrichidze
The Economic of Wilderness mini-conference in Brussels (European Parliament) on January 2012
• the EP calls on the Commission and Member States to co-operate with local non-governmental organisations to promote the value of wilderness
What happened between 2008-2012
Oulanka NP © Paavo Hamunen
What happened between 2008-2012
EC wilderness guidance document for N2000 sites
• Alterra, Eurosite, PAN Parks
• final draft submitted in March 2012
• final document soon available on EC website
Majella NP © Bruno D’Amicis
What happened between 2008-2012
Wilderness Register to be set as foundation of European Wilderness Preservation System
• Alterra, University of Leeds, PAN Parks
• unique database available on EEA (by Sept 2013)
• currently in consultation phase with preliminary list
Paanajärvi NP ©Viktor Gritsuk
Photo: Simon KertysChamois © Bruno D’Amicis
We are running for WILD10 which is to be organised in Salamanca, Spain in October 2013
What happened between 2008-2012
PAN Parks contributionsRetezat NP © Andreas Beckmann
Paanajärvi NP ©Viktor Gritsuk
Who we are
Photo: Simon Kertys© Bruno D’Amicis
PAN Parks is the only European-wide organisation focusing on the protection of wilderness areas
Paanajärvi NP ©Viktor Gritsuk
PAN Parks works to protect Europe’s wilderness, the continent’s most undisturbed areas of nature and contributes to implementing the Agenda for Europe’s Wilderness (outputs of Prague conference)
PAN Parks contributions
Paanajärvi NP © Minna Koramo
PAN Parks contributions
Work programme 2013: Linking wilderness to EC policies and priorities in order to ensure proper protection and representation of wilderness within N2000 network
PAN Parks contributions
Majella NP ©MNP
Linking to EC priorities
• wilderness is part of the 2020 Biodiversity Strategy
• Green Infrastructure / Cohesion policy
• CAP reform discussion
• Financing biodiversity
• PES / Biz & Biodiversity
Borjomi-Kharagauli NP © Konstantin Gabrichidze
Analysing legal protection under the current nature directives
Fulufjället NP © Vitantonio Dell’Orto/exuviaphoto.com
Promoting N2000 guidance document
Peneda-Geres NP © Marcos Veiga
Collecting best-practice for mgmt
Archipelago NP © Janne Görling
Contributing to wilderness register
‘The Million Project’ provides the framework to organisations working on the protection of wilderness and to more protected areas throughout Europe to join
Protecting 1 million hectares of wilderness by 2015
PAN Parks contributions
PAN Parks contributions
Borjomi-Kharagauli NP © Kote Gabrichidze
Pro-biodiversity business examples
Wilderness for people – people for wildernessTourism / Finance, investment / Forestry
Fulufjallet NP © Vitantonio Dell’Orto
PAN Parks contributions
Developing research agenda for wilderness
• What the benefits of wilderness protection are
• Joint report with Society for Conservation Biology
• Wilderness Resource Bank
Archipelago NP © Janne Görling
Wilderness Funding Programme
FR event in the House of Lords, Londonspecies protection / training / interpretation
AwarenessPromoting wilderness on social mediaFacebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest
Youtube.com
PAN Parks contributions
Wilderness is closer than you think!
Paanajärvi NP ©Viktor Gritsuk
International Year of Wilderness
Oulanka NP © Kimmo Salminen
WILD10, Salamanca, October 2013
Soomaa NP © Arne Ader
Linkage with Europarc Federation
Charter for sustainable tourism / Transboundary protection / EEIG for wilderness
Retezat NP © Mihai Moiceanu
5% vision – moral argument
23 October: EEA reported 21% protection in Europe! Is 5% too much?
www.panparks.org
THANK YOU!
PAN Parks works to protect
Europe’s wilderness, the
continent’s most undisturbed areas
of nature
http://panparks.orghttp://facebook.com/panparks
http://panparks.org/user/registerhttp://linkedin.com/panparksgrouphttp://youtube.com/user/PANParks
http://storiesofwilderness.panparks.orghttp://mymillionproject.ning.com