New project launched for Carpathian Protected Areas

The European Wilderness Society is excited to share the news that Centralparks, a new transboundary project in the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme has officially started in April 2019. The project focuses on building management capacities of Carpathian protected areas for the integration and harmonisation of biodiversity protection and local socio-economic development.

Carpathian importance

The Carpathians belong to the most important European eco-regions.
They are a bastion of wildlife as well as the greatest remaining stands of old growth forest. At the same time, some of Europe’s richest cultural landscapes are located in the Carpathians. However, biodiversity loss and increasing pressures threaten its outstanding natural values. Traditional approaches to resource management and nature conservation are no longer sufficient to guarantee long-lasting economic benefits and provision of ecosystem services. Such problems in fact cannot be solved by one country alone, and require transnational cooperation.

The Centralparks project, co-funded by the European Commission through the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme, has the overall budget of 1.6 Mio. EUR. The project unites 8 project partners as well as 8 associated partners from 9 European countries, aiming to harmonise management capacities in Carpathian Protected Areas. Above all, Centralparks supports nature protection and local sustainable development, improves integrated environmental management capacities and policies, and focuses on mitigating current threats and pressures to biodiversity. As a result, the developed strategies will be endorsed by the Carpathian Convention, facilitating the uptake to the policy level and implementation in a long-term perspective.

The official Kick-off meeting of the project took place on 16-17th April in Bolzano, Italy.

International partnership

Centralparks has a high interregional character, with partners from 7 different countries:

• European Academy of Bolzano/Bolzen – Eurac Research (Lead Partner), Italy
• The State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia
• NFA-Romsilva-Piatra Craiului National Parks Administration R.A., Romania
• Ekopsychology Society, Poland
• Danube-Ipoly National Park Directorate, Hungary
• Pronatur NGO, Slovakia
• European Wilderness Society, Austria
• Education and Information Centre of Bílé Karpaty Mountains, Czech Republic

In addition, there are several Associated Strategic Partners involved:

• Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea – IMELS, Italy
• Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia
• DANUBEPARKS, Austria
• Ministry of Environment, Poland
• Ministry of Environment, Romania
• CEEweb for Biodiversity, Hungary
• European Beech Forest Network, Germany
• Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine, Ukraine

The European Wilderness Society, with its extensive network across Europe will communicate and therefore positively influence the implementation of the project objectives. This will ensure that the impactful project outputs reach a broad audience inside as well as outside the Carpathians.

The Centralparks project enables us to support the Carpathian protected areas together with a great partner consortium. An important development to secure the future of these important natural places.

Max A. E. Rossberg

Chairman European Wilderness Society

In addition, Centralparks started simultaneously with the Interreg project BEECH POWER, in which the European Wilderness Society is also involved.