The Future of Protected Areas
The first intense education for the “Management of Protected Areas” has come to a festive end.
Michael Jungmeier appeared “proud and content” on the occasion of the graduation ceremony for the MSc course “Management of Protected Areas”. For the 19 participants from Armenia, Latvia, Malta, Nepal, Austria, Romania and Switzerland, a two-year education ended with this university ceremony.
Before, the participants had presented their diploma theses and put them up for discussion within the “International Colloquium on Protected Areas”. The audience with representatives from IUCN, WWF, Ramsar Convention and the Convention of Biological Diversity were “very impressed” by the quality and innovative character of the works.
The graduation was embedded in the “Klagenfurt Days of Protected Areas”. Well-known guests and high-grade specialist events dealt with the protected areas of the future. The well-attended forum for experts and practitioners took place for the first time.
The course is developed and offered in a co-operation between Klagenfurt University and E.C.O. Institute for Ecology. The next course, to which 20 participants from 14 states are expected, starts in autumn. On behalf of the course management, Michael Jungmeier emphasises that this “training programme which is unique in Europe” is to be further developed and extended in the years to come.