Posted by Vlado Vancura (Conservation Manager, PAN Parks Foundation)
World Health Day is celebrated on 7th April to mark the anniversary of the founding of World Health Organization in 1948. Each year a theme is selected for World Health Day to highlight a priority area of public health concern in the world. The theme for 2013 is high blood pressure.
High blood pressure – also known as raised blood pressure or hypertension – increases the risk of heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure. If left uncontrolled, high blood pressure can also cause blindness, irregularities of the heartbeat and heart failure. The risk of developing these complications is higher in the presence of other cardiovascular risk factors such as diabetes. One in three adults worldwide has high blood pressure.
We have a very special blog post today, on 8th March, the International Women’s Day. We would like to enhance the role of women in wilderness protection in Europe, so we asked our female colleagues, friends and partners in our network, to describe what role wilderness has in their lives. Let’s see, what wilderness means to women?
"Wilderness is the place, what pulls me out from the everyday routine. No wellness hotel can fill me with so much energy like spending a day in wilderness. I love forests especially, where I can empty my brain, I can concentrate only on myself and enjoy the miracle of trees, the singing of birds and sounds of the wilderness." Eszter Balogh, PAN Parks Foundation
Posted by Jo Roberts, Chief Executive of the Wilderness Foundation UK
Working outdoors with people is not only good for the soul, but increasingly it is being recognised as a benefit that improves social and personal wellbeing. As a result it addresses on-going costs to social and health care and ultimately can save money.
Why? Because evidence of this as an effective therapeutic environment, with long lasting effects, is growing across Europe.Working with other organisations we are exploring ways of demonstrating how the protection of heritage wilderness areas in Europe can have a ripple effect in social capital for governments and local communities. We are tying together how we will benefit people. It is a critical approach in this era of financial austerity where the environment takes the last seat on the bus of employment and economic concerns.
Posted by Zoltan Kun, Executive Director of PAN Parks Foundation
How much wilderness is needed in Europe? Several people asked this question and wanted to hear our vision during the last annual conference of PAN Parks, the 11th Europe’s Wilderness Days in Nauvo, Finland. So the PAN Parks team presented what we have achieved and how we see the future of wilderness protection in Europe from the conservation point of view.
People asking this question probably expected a modest answer, which one might call a realistic target, but I don’t want to be realistic now. Our ambition is to be a European leader on wilderness protection, and to be more visionary. What size or territory would be needed from moral point of view? For instance the Federal Government of Germany made a pledge of protecting 2% of its territory wilderness by 2020, but we at PAN Parks actually want more. We argue and fight for 5% wilderness in order to compensate our human footprint on the continent.
Posted by Lara Klaassen (Endurance runner, Director of the Center for Environmental Education and Nature Conservation in Maastricht, also known as the Wandering Wolf)
Trail runners compete for nature conservation. That is the idea behind the Wolf Mountain Run (WMR), an event which took place in the beautiful Italian Abruzzo Mountains between 7th-9th September. The participants gathered sponsored money to help the work of PAN Parks Foundation. In return, they were taken through a breath-taking mountain wilderness in a three day trail running event. With their participation, they contributed financially to the protection of the wilderness area where they were running, the Majella National Park.
Posted by Mark Fisher (Research Fellow, Wildland Research Institute, Leeds)
It’s easy to plan a walking trip in the wilds of America. The wilderness areas, National Parks and National Forests (1) as well as State Parks and Open Space County Parks (2) are in public ownership and festooned with walking trails. It is especially easy in Colorado because of a series of books by Pamela Irwin on Colorado’s Best Wildflower Hikes (3). I used her first book in 2003 while walking the flatirons of the Front Range mountains, west of Denver, and in the Rocky Mountain National Park (4). I was back again in 2008, and her second book was my guide to the Park Range high country mountains of the continental divide (5). Her third book covers the San Juan Mountains of south-western Colorado, and it is inspiring me to plan a series of walks for next year that could take me into the wilderness areas of La Garita, Lizard Head, Powderhorns, Mount Sneffels and Weminuche, as well as the National Forests of Gunnison, Rio Grande, San Juan and Uncompahgre.
Posted by Vlado Vancura (Conservation Manager, PAN Parks Foundation)
Jasper National Park is the largest among Canada's Rocky Mountain Parks and part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Around 95% of the national park area is classified as wilderness. It spans 1 122 800 hectares of broad valleys, rugged mountains, glaciers, forests, Alpine meadows and wild rivers along the Eastern slopes of the Rockies in Western Alberta, with more than 1200 kilometres of hiking trails (both overnight and day trips), and a number of spectacular mountain drives.
Availability and access to freshwater is a major issue in Italy. What is supposed to a basic right of mankind is becoming nowadays something to put a price and a barcode on. Few people have an idea of where the water we drink everyday is coming from and, more, even less realize the importance of mountain wilderness areas for the preservation of water resources.
In November two wolves and a red fox have been found dead in the southern part of the Majella National Park – presumably poisoned –, but nobody can say it with certainty.
It has been an outrageously long time since my last post. Autumn has been a very busy period for me and several duties took me to work away from my beloved "Montagna Madre", to places as far as the Indian Himalaya. But now I am finally back home and plan to get back to you with more stories and news very soon. Stay tuned!
Posted on April 8, 2013 at 01:04 pm | Leave a comment »