The umbrella organisation of the European large-scale protected areas Europarc Federation supported by the IfLS presented the SDG.imp website on 28 October within the framework of a webinar and discussed perspectives on the implementation of the SDGs with 51 participants from various European large-scale protected areas.
National parks, UNESCO biosphere reserves, nature parks and UNESCO geoparks see themselves as model regions for sustainable management. They promote sustainable tourism, offer numerous activities in the field of education for sustainable development and support sustainable forms of land use by promoting regional products. In order to go beyond this and fully address sustainable development and sustainable management in large protected areas, the SDG.imp project developed information materials on the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), working materials and compiled good practice examples of how large protected areas can promote sustainable management and sustainable development beyond the usual activities.
The 17 SDGs are an ideal approach to this, as they consider ecological, economic and social aspects together and in a topic-specific way. The information materials cover all SDGs and show, for example, how renewable energies can contribute to economic development in large protected areas in line with conservation goals, how innovations and regional economic cycles are promoted, or how large protected area administrations can also contribute to gender equality. Furthermore, the developed working materials support large protected area administrations in identifying needs for action and optimising projects and (municipal) decisions on the basis of decision-making tools in order to contribute to the implementation of the SDGs in large protected areas.
It became apparent that many large protected areas (have to) set priorities within the framework of their work and that sustainable development and sustainable management in the comprehensive sense, such as the SDGs, are often not yet being pursued. With the developed materials, the project consortium tries to sensitise and inspire large protected areas and regional decision-makers to anchor sustainable management and sustainable development more strongly in their activities.
The documentation and the recording of the workshop can be found here.
Contact persons at IfLS: Christoph Mathias (mathias[at]ifls.de), Dr. Ulrich Gehrlein (gehrlein[at]ifls.de)
