The European Charter Partnership Programme enables individual businesses in the tourism sector, working with protected area authority, to become recognised as European Charter Partners of their relating protected area under the umbrella of the EUROPARC Federation. All the approaches and experiences from the Charter protected areas in working with tourism business were highly valuable and considered for its development. In 2005, the EUROPARC Federation started the process of drawing up a framework for protected areas across Europe to implement the European Charter Partnership Programme - Charter Part II. The Charter protected areas Pilat regional nature park and Cevennes national park are two of seven protected areas located in the Massif Central, France, who came together and founded the IPAMAC association, elaborating an experimental methodology that commits all the partners and the volunteer businesses to carry out a concrete action plan which must respect the principles of sustainable tourism recommended in the European Charter. As part of the Charter Action Plan, Harz National Park has started to certify national park friendly accommodation (Nationalparkfreundliche Unterkünfte) which fulfil special quality criteria, get involved with environmental protection activities and receive regular up-to-date information from the national park. The Volcanic Zone of Garrotxa Nature Park and the Tourism Association Garrotxa have been cooperating since 2001 in accrediting tourism businesses as Information Points of the nature park. Many Charter protected areas have already started to build partnerships with local tourism businesses. 45 protected areas in seven European countries already belong to the Charter network, providing numerous model examples of how to develop and implement tourism activities that are ecologically, economically and socially balanced. The European Charter has been successfully implemented for more than ten years. A positive influence on and new impulses to tourism development have been seen in and around the Charter protected areas resulting in new ideas and projects. Based on the ten Charter Principles for Sustainable Tourism, the Forum develops a common sustainable tourism strategy and a 5-year action plan. The core element of the Charter is working in partnership with all relevant stakeholders establishing a Sustainable Tourism Forum, including inter alia local communities, tourism businesses, local development groups and conservation NGOs. The European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas is a practical management tool that enables protected areas to develop and implement their tourism activities in terms of sustainable development.
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