Central Europe Eco-Tourism: tools for nature protection
The last State of Environment Report (SOER 2015, by European Environmental Agency) states that the most effective goal related to nature conservation is to foster ecosystems resilience and in this vision human activities are the main driving forces. Within the Protected Areas (PAs) involved in CEETO tourism, of all the human activities, can be the most effective tool to valorize the natural heritage, contribute to its conservation, achieve well-being of local communities. The identification of appropriate, cost-effective and low-impact models to manage a sustainable tourism is still an open challenge in Central Europe: CEETO project therefore aims at implementing an innovative governance system for tourism based on a participatory planning approach (as described in the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas-ECST), able to improve the managing capacities of PAs managers and implement an actual sustainable use of nature and its assets. Moreover CEETO aims at identifying and testing innovative management and monitoring tools specifically focused on sustainable tourism activities in different contexts, well represented by the PAs involved in the pilot actions. CEETO project builds on a strategic transnational partnership, that involves subjects (partners and associates) belonging both to the policy making level and to the PAs managing bodies level. The project has a high transnational character because it capitalizes the long-standing experiences of ECST implementation in Europe and it provides a common approach to Protected Areas management shared among the six participating Countries (IT; DE; AT; HU; SI; HR). The establishment of the permanent CEETO Network among project partners and associates will enhance the durability and sustainability of CEETO project outcomes well beyond its duration, ensure a wide and concrete impact of results, findings and best practices that will be transferred to the PAs in the whole Central Europe territory.