The European Day of Parks

We at INTO received this information and hope you will find it useful.

Dear EUROPARC members, friends and supporters,

The European Day of Parks is almost upon us again. The EUROPARC Federation has been celebrating Europe’s protected areas through this event since 1999. It is a great opportunity for you to promote your protected area and its work to the general public and your local stakeholders and politicians. We celebrate officially on the 24th May, marking the date when the first national parks in Europe were founded, but please also use the week around this date to organise your events.

This year’s theme is: “Parks for nature. Parks for well-being. Parks for peace”

In 2014 the world will mark the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. Why should we remember? Why should we stop and think about those events that happened so long ago? By the end of the First World War there were very few people in the countries that took part who remained unaffected. The war reached out and touched almost everyone’s life in some way or other.
By connecting our most important date to this anniversary, we want to emphasize how our protected areas can have very different roles in people’s lives.

What can you do for the European Day of Parks?

1) Organise an event!
Why not use the day to reflect on our history, take a short walk with your youngsters and talk about this important year. Mark the day with an activity or event and tell us what you are doing.
If you would like to organise an activity please do get in contact with us, register and send us your ideas in order to include you in our online calendar for the EDOP 2014. We will publish your activities on our website and further promote. If you mark so in your registration, EUROPARC will also provide you with the template promotional material to adapt it to your own activities.
*Register here for the event!*

2) Join the online contest!
We also invite all the people who work in protected areas as well as those who visit them to reflect on our history that day in the beauty of nature and share their feelings and emotions in any piece of art that expresses how they reflect on the history happenings and feel connected to their most favourite Protected Area.

The European Day of Parks 2014 is for people of all ages: children, youngsters, young adults, adults and seniors. Anyone can contribute her/his own idea and passion experienced in nature. Create a piece of artwork in any shape you like, but send it to us digitalized (in a photo format), and enter the competition! The 2014 day will run as an online contest on Facebook for the most inspiring material of the day.
For more information on how to join the contest, please see here.

All protected areas, Natura 2000 sites, EUROPARC members and partners are invited to join both the European Day of Parks activities and contest – and make this day an unforgettable event!
We look forward to hearing from many of you about the events you are planning for the European Day of Parks, the one day of the year dedicated especially to the promotion of your parks and protected areas. This certainly is a not to be missed occasion to join forces and let Europe know about the great work you are doing!

If you are not the person responsible for organising your protected area’s events please do pass this message on to the individual who does.

Kind regards,

Dea Mijakovac
Communications Officer

EUROPARC Federation
Waffnergasse 6 93047 Regensburg Germany

T: +49 (0)941 599 35 98- 0 (ext. 3)
E: d.mijakovac@europarc.org
S: dea.mijakovac.europarc

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