The most dangerous and limiting seven words in the English language are …
“We have always done it this way”
Thankfully, the predecessors in EUROPARC instilled in the organisation a more courageous, open-minded and adventurous spirit, that have enabled us to evolve and grow over our 50 years.
To make mistakes and learn from them, and to try new things that risk failure is a difficult outlook to foster.
It's not only the care of our natural and cultural landscapes that has been important but the “landscape of the “mind” that has been nurtured through networking by EUROPARC.
Protected Areas need to proclaim their values and benefits, and rise to current and future challenges.
This has been beautifully done in Spain, other countries should follow suit.
One of the laws of life and nature is that nothing ever stays the same. Everything is in a constant state of flux, sometimes slow and gradual, sometimes rapid and abrupt. The triple emergencies of COVID-19, climate and biodiversity in recent years, have underlined the speed at which old certainties can melt away.
Change can be both exhilarating and frightening.
It can create opportunities for some and leave others behind.
The need to learn from each other, the need to raise standards in the management of Protected Areas, the need to conserve and protect our shared resources, the need to realise we are more interdependent and interconnected than ever, and the need to highlight the value and benefit of Protected Areas collectively, is something we do better as a common endeavour and is as important now as it ever was.
As recorded by the Federations first General Secretary:
“One can only hope that the Federation is making its contribution to preserve and maintain this precious heritage to be passed on to coming generations…..people have in the meantime, realised that, in spite of all technical progress, we cannot do without a healthy and well cared for countryside”.
- Dr Herbert Offner, General Secretary, EUROPARC Federation December, 1976
To achieve that means forging a stronger partnership between social, cultural and natural processes. An understanding that is underpinned by good science on how ecological dynamics and environmental constraints are influencing societal political choices and are in turn influenced by them. Because Europe's Protected Areas are:
Microcosmos naturae, sedes hominum, theatrum historiae, eutopia futuris
The Microcosum of Nature, The Home of Man, The Theatre of History, The Good Place of the Future
- Patrick Geddes
European and national policies areas are signposting that a change is needed, if we are to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. Inspirational stories and sustainable choices by many parks and their communities are leading the changes required. These individually may seem small measures but collectively they act as exemplars of change in the approach and practice of Protected Areas management.
Successful international cooperation efforts are a complex web of interconnected, multi-faceted arrangements. However, the most significant barrier for EUROPARC going forward may be balancing the needs of individual parks and national parks systems, which ignores the global commons risk. Instead we must continue to strive to prioritise a common good, that encourages collaboration and shared responsibility of choices, decisions and actions for a better nature and society for all.
We need a new approach that takes the best from traditional forms of governance, not only built around old institutions or traditional notions of nation-states, but looks at collective responsibility and natural and cultural resources as beyond borders.
What will the shape of Europe’s parks and Protected Areas in the future be?
More importantly is the question - what role can Europe’s parks and Protected Areas play in shaping their future?
To do so, we must remain as advocates for Protected Areas at political levels and Remain Relevant to multiple agendae. Be stronger together, across all European countries. Converting our Aspirations into Action through shared endeavours, capacity building and projects. Adopting innovative, forward thinking, outward looking, inclusive approaches, as well as partnership working with communities, public sector, business, academia.
Fundamentally to Embrace Sustainability, enabling Protected Areas to be exemplars and multipliers as models for nature conservation, benefiting society and maintaining our cultural heritage and rural livelihoods. EUROPARC will continue to engender sense of Protected Area community across, Common Goals: Shared Vision, encourage exchange of ideas through international cooperation and networking.
Protected Areas, as EUROPARC has asserted for 50 years, are powerful laboratories to envisage new strategies for nature conservation. They are also lighthouses for regions and communities to create identities re-connected to landscape and nature.
As a Protected Area community, what story will we tell? One of endless struggle, feeling overwhelmed? Or one of forging new paths and creating new opportunities for parks to be the green hearts of Europe.
“There is now a strategic reconsideration of what is the role Protected Areas in nature conservation and what they should provide…….in my view EUROPARC should be at the front of these discussions…not only at the European but at the Global level”
- Michael Hošek, President since 2021
Michael reflects on the future of Protected Areas.
The creation of Protected Areas of Europe and of EUROPARC itself was, and is, an expression of faith in the future between generations, a promise from the past to the future… a promise yet to be fully realised.
It requires vision, of a SUSTAINABLE NATURE; VALUED BY PEOPLE, building on the legacy of our predecessors, so that all have the opportunity to realise the economic, social and environmental benefits Protected Areas can and do bring to society.
It is a movement and a vision that at its most effective is park and community led, but needs visionary political leadership. It aims to protect nature, to support parks and build sustainable resilient rural economies, by connecting people and places for the next 50 years and beyond . Because….
Choose a leaf to continue your story journey.