Workshop on “Evaluation of the National Park Mavrovo’s Welfare”

On 19 June 2013 the National Park “Mavrovo” hosted the team that works on the project “Dinaric Arc Parks.” Within the scope of this visit, in the Hotel “Makpetrol” there was carried out a workshop on “Evaluation of the National Park Mavrovo’s Welfare.”

In 2012 WWF started the “Dinaric Arc Parks” Project, the purpose of which was to gather and connect the people engaged operating in the protected areas of this Arc, the networking and connection enabled via series of conferences, study visits, workshops, trainings and other interactive activities. In 2013, the National Park “Mavrovo” became a member of the European Federation of National Parks (Europark). As a member of this Federation, experts from this Park went on a study visit to the national parks in France, where they had the unique opportunity to get familiar with the European Certificate for Sustainable Tourism “Charter.”

The National Park “Mavrovo” started making its first steps in this direction, and consequently on 19 June 2013 there was held the workshop within the frameworks of which the methodology for estimating the value of the protected areas (PA-BAT) was used. This methodology enables the representatives of the national parks and the nature to learn how to make estimate of their own protected areas.

The methodology has been designed for the purpose of protecting the nature, and also for helping the National Park “Mavrovo” to collect and transfer all the information on the total benefits from the protected areas.

At this workshop there were invited and attended all the representatives of the interested parties such as the local population represented by  the local self-government, the local communities, the non-government sector, entities that operate at the territory of the National Park, experts, representatives of the Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning, entities that operate in and outside the Park or cooperate with the Park in the realization of the projected activities all for the purpose of expressing and systematizing their own views and attitudes about the values of the National Park “Mavrovo” and making these views and attitudes become closer to the public.

At the beginning the audience was addressed by Mr. Goce Anastasoski. In his speech he closely referred to the vision of the National Park “Mavrovo.” Then, followed the address of Mr. Deny Porrey, WWF representative, who talked about the significance of the “Dinaric Arc Parks” Project as well as about the methodology used within the workshop.

This methodology is uniformed for all the Dinaric Arc Parks, the Arc covering national parks and protected areas in Slovenia. All the former Yugoslav republics as well as Albania, i.e. it covers all those parks through which the Dinaric Arc spreads over.