Communicating intangible values and benefits of protected areas in Europe

The German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation and the Europarc Federation organised in 14-18 April 2009 the workshop “Communicating values and benefits of Protected Areas in Europe”, held in the International Academy for Nature Conservation on the Baltic island of Vilm, Germany, coordinated by Sue Stolton (Equilibrium)

The IUCN’s Task force on Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas and the Delos Initiative were invited to discuss spiritual values. Josep-Maria Mallarach, a member of Association Silene, and co-ordinator of the Delos Initiative, gave two presentations based on the experience of the Delos Initiative over the past few years, one on the spiritual values of protected areas in Europe and the other – focusing on the case of Montserrat, Spain – on strategies for communicating spiritual values in protected areas that contain Christian monastic communities.

The conclusions of the workshop were prepared during the last work session and included a series of recommendations regarding the need to take into account a wide-ranging series of values and benefits of protected natural areas and not just their natural or economic importance. the proceeding, published by the organisation, can be freely downloaded from this website.