WeWild Project / 2016-2018

Wildlife Disturbance in Winter: Developing a joint Communication Strategy

During our international workshop 'Wildlife and Winter Sport Activities' in the Bauges regional nature park in March 2016, our members and other participants expressed a strong desire to elaborate a common approach to reducing the impact of winter sports on wildlife. Under the framework of the project WeWild, ALPARC aims at developing – for the protected areas of the Alps – a joint communication strategy and awareness-raising tools in order to reduce the impact of winter sports on wildlife in the Alps.

A team project

WeWild brought together experts from Alpine protected areas and other associated stakeholders (Alpine clubs, nature protection organizations, biologists) during two international workshops that took place in 2017.

• The first, on March 23rd and 24th, 2017 (Vorarlberg/AT) aimed to share experiences through awareness-raising campaigns and to elaborate on the contents of the strategy and the common tools.
• The second workshop, in November 2017 in the Italian Alps, served to refine and validate the work.
• Besides these international workshops, 3 further workshops were organized under the framework of the project due to existing synergies with other projects and events (Bourg d'Oisans/FR - 09/2017, Grenoble/FR - 01/2018, Berchtesgaden/DE - 01/2018).

Overall, more than 60 experts from over 40 organizations from 6 countries took part in the exchanges and the development of the communication tools.

2017 Outputs: Let your heart beat for "Be Part of the Mountain".

To increase outdoor sports practitioners' awareness on wildlife distrubance and to contribute to the visibility of the many existing initiatives, ALPARC developed the joint communication initiative “Be Part of the Mountain” (BPM, also abbr. for heartbeats per minute). The BPM tools have been available since January 2018 for ALPARC members, project partners and other stakeholders in the network.

• A joint communication strategy
• An inviting, comprehensible and international logo (see the presentation document)
• A short, teasing and concise video clip available at the ALPARC YouTube Channel 
• An appealing website 

2018 Outputs

In 2018, the project developed partnerships with the private sector, festivals and sporting events to disseminate the tools and to implement the communication strategy in the medium run. The final conference took place in November 2018 in Germany and brought together more momentum to the BPM initiative, presenting the results and gathering a large number of Alpine stakeholders around the topic.

Results

• A joint awareness-raising message to winter outdoor practitioners in the Alps
• Improvement in the cooperation between protected areas and nature sport stakeholders in the Alps
• Improvement in the handling of nature sports in protected areas through international exchanges

Project details

The project was financed by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN, Germany) with funds from Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB, Germany).