"Joint communication and environmental education" Working Group

This working group was created in 1998 and is a horizontal group in that it covers nearly all the subjects dealt with in other groups and exchange programmes. The group is therefore chaired by the Task Force Protected Areas. The group is mostly made up of communication and education officers from Alpine protected areas.

Objectives

ALPARC's general communication objectives are:

to inform the general public about protected areas in the Alps
to raise awareness about conservation in the Alps (Alpine Convention) and therefore about the role of the protected areas in the Alps
to provide information about ALPARC and the value of international cooperation in this field (exchanges, experience, expertise).

Achievements

In ALPARC's early years, the emphasis was naturally on developing internal communication, i.e. communication between the managers of Alpine protected areas.
The working group then headed up and implemented the ALPENCOM project (INTERREG IIIB) from 2005 to 2008. The project's main aim was to organise and expand external communication – communication with the public.

It resulted in the creation of a communication strategy, together with a corporate design and the first generation of communication tools.

	The group is currently focussing on continuing the work begun during the ALPENCOM programme and is also expanding its outlook to include environmental education, principally through collaboration with the Alpine Mountain Environment Education Network (REEMA). (The list of the members of the working group is available on the Extranet: restricted access only).