News

Emblematic Mediterranean mountain network

05.06.2015

The birthplace of many civilisations, the sea, is surrounded by three continents: a sea among lands. Mountainous peaks rise here and there as the backdrop of these heavily populated costal lands; since most ancient time, they have guided seamen to reach their port safe and sound.

These landscapes, stretching from sea to mountains, are one of the common features of these Mediterranean areas. Formed by men and by a unique climate, shared by people from a great diversity of cultures, these areas take on an emblematic and even sacred dimension.

Following this, the Canigó Grand Site de France and the LAG Terres Romanes (local action group), supported by the LEADER European programme, launched in 2013 the idea of creating a network of Mediterranean Emblematic Mountains. The prime objective is to create a platform to share experience, know-how and models of organization for these territories with strong potential for tourism and a responsibility to preserve their fragile and precious ecosystems.

Over time, the network will bring together site managers and developers who face similar challenges (managing risks linked to tourism pressure, preserving diverse environments, developing sustainable tourist destinations, adapting to global warming); it will become a place for members to exchange and to participate in shared projects of flexible sizes and groups.

Subsequently, three seminars took place as follows: October 2013 in France, June 2014 in Greece and April 2015 in Bulgaria. These three meetings, together with other initiatives (video and audio conferences) and some sub-committee technical working sessions, have so far resulted in:

- a written charter for the Mediterranean Emblematic Mountains,

- the creation of some common communication tools to present the emblematic sites,

- the continuation of technical exchanges related to the management of issues linked to the attractiveness and vulnerability of these sites (inter-sites workshops).

The partners of this project belong to five European countries: Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italia and Spain. Their ambition is to create robust foundations for a network to welcome new partners between now and 2020. In the long term, they wish to integrate new members from the Southern Mediterranean bounds, outside the European Union. To pursue these aims, partners should launch some research work and the organization of a dedicated conference before the end of 2015.

LAG (local action groups) partners:

LAG Razlog (Bulgaria); LAG Pyrénées Méditerranée (France); LAG Terres Romanes en Pays Catalan (France); LAG Pieriki Anaptixiaki (Greece).

Associated partners: Canigó Grand Site and Sainte-Victoire Grand Site (France); PiaceCibosano, OPERA Research Centre (Italy); Agency of Development of Bergueda (Spain - Catalonia).