PAN Parks Foundation

PAN Parks Foundation
founding	1997
Seat	Győr , Hungary
resolution	2014
main emphasis	environmental Protection
Action space	Europe
people	Zoltán Kun
Website	www.panparks.org

The non-profit PAN Parks Foundation , which existed from 1997 to 2014, had set itself the task of locating and certifying wilderness relics or potential wilderness development areas in national parks and other large protected areas in Europe and contractually securing the long-term process protection of these areas. To this end, the foundation offered the sponsors various forms of support. This ranged from nature conservation know-how to public relations measures and concepts for economic protection. The part of the name “PAN” stands for P rotected A rea N etwork.

As a rule, PAN Parks did not designate any new protected areas. From a nature conservation point of view, it was rather a Europe-wide evaluation system for already existing protected areas.

history

PAN Parks was founded in 1997 as a project of the environmental foundation WWF in cooperation with the Dutch tourism company Molecaten. As early as 1998, the organization acquired its own legal capacity as a foundation based in Hungary.

In the first ten years of the foundation, ten protected areas were certified and more than 60 local tourism companies signed up.

The foundation's work has been suspended since October 2013. As of February 26, 2014, the European Wilderness Society (EWS) will announce that bankruptcy has been filed. Apparently the foundation is experiencing significant financial difficulties. At the same time, the Wilderness Society distances itself from any legal or financial relationship with PAN Parks, although it indicates that it will continue the work of the PAN Parks Foundation.

aims

The primary goal of the foundation was the certification and long-term protection of large European wilderness areas in a specially created network of certified areas, which were internally called PAN parks . In order to guarantee long-term financing of the projects and, in addition, to achieve public acceptance and economic added value for the regions in which the protected areas are located, the organization relied on the promotion of tailor-made sustainable tourism concepts .

implementation

The independent organization European Wilderness Society has taken over the existing PAN parks under the same conditions - described below.

natural reserve

The foundation had developed a certification recognized by European and other international nature conservation organizations based on strict quality criteria for European wilderness reserves. To designate a “PAN Parks Wilderness Area”, an existing national park had to have a core area (usually) at least 10,000 hectares in size with an unpopulated, uncut and as little hemerobic natural landscape as possible . In addition, a total park size of at least 20,000 hectares is required. This is to ensure that the self-regulation of ecosystems and the survival of sufficiently large populations of endangered animal and plant species are preserved. In addition, the greater the size of the area, the lower the risk of a negative impact from permitted tourism, since there is more scope for appropriate control concepts.

For the inclusion of an area in the network, the protected areas had to be representative of the European natural heritage ( Natura 2000 ). In order to ensure that the areas develop as naturally as possible , a park management system was set up that promoted the conservation and restoration of ecological processes and biological diversity in the ecosystems.

tourism

The original landscapes, which are located in densely populated countries, inevitably attract many visitors. This nature tourism often has negative consequences for the natural balance of ecosystems . In order to make a virtue out of this need, the foundation developed extensive concepts for nature-friendly and sustainable ecotourism for the certified areas . This mainly includes the division of the protected area into different zones, for each of which different regulations - adapted to the nature conservation requirements - applied. Potential tourism companies were then selected that could offer the planned services on their own behalf.

The foundation only selected local businesses that are able to offer guided walking tours, sled dog safaris, wildlife viewing and the like. The tour operators were allowed to use the PAN Parks logo for this and secured the exclusive right to the corresponding park. For its part, the foundation supported public relations work, including a. via their former website panparks.org .

recognition

In the opinion of the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation , certification under private law by PAN Parks was an exemplary and first cross-border assessment system for protected areas in Europe.

Individual evidence

1. ^ PAN Parks advised to file bankruptcy , at wilderness-society.org, accessed January 18, 2019
2. ↑ Reference of the PAN Park methodology ( Memento of the original from February 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 110 kB) for the WDPA , 2002 
3. ↑ Kerstin Wörler, Andrea Burmester, Gisela Stolpe (arr.): Case study for the certification of national parks. (PDF; 2.9 MB) In: Evaluation of the management effectiveness in large German protected areas . Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, BfN-Skripte 173, 2006