Alps / Europe

Twelve campsite operators in South Tyrol are planning to introduce an environmental management system as part of the Eco-camping Project.

CIPRA, the International Commission for the Protection of the Alps, is calling for an Alpine Convention (AC) action plan on climate protection. CIPRA has sent a letter to this effect to the Environment Ministers of the Alpine countries and the EU, who are meeting in Alpbach/A on 8 and 9 November for the 9th Alpine Conference.

A study by the Swiss national research programme on "Landscapes and Habitats of the Alp" supports the assumption that alpine eco-systems do not react particularly flexibly to human intervention.

This year's international festival of "mountain professions" (Métiers de Montagne) is being held in Chambéry/F from 23 to 26 November.

The conference proceedings for the 3rd International Conference on the Monitoring and Management of Visitors Flows in Recreational and Protected Areas have just been published.

Scientists from Switzerland and France have now developed a new joinery method called wood welding.

The IPAM (Integrative Protected Area Management) Project co-financed by the EU focused on the exchange of experience and on methods and instruments of planning and management in protected areas.

Last week the King Albert I Memorial Foundation honoured seven mountain experts with golden awards. One of the Awards went to Germany's Werner Bätzing as a "leading expert on problems of the Alps as a whole".

The new "Guidelines for promoting sustainable agriculture in Alpine mountain regions" in four languages (de/fr/it/en) contains numerous recommendations for the planning and implementation of projects and measures aimed at promoting sustainable agriculture in Alpine mountain regions.

"The Alps of the Next Generation" was the theme of the AlpWeek 2004 held in Kranjska Gora/SI, a conference which looked at ways of finding solution approaches to current problems and staged a number of scientific discussions.