Perth-based Centre for Mountain Studies project to develop ecotourism initiatives
New Centre for Mountain Studies project.
The Centre for Mountain Studies at Perth College UHI is leading a new €1.5 million 3-year project funded by the European Commission’s Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme. ‘Sustainable Heritage Areas: Partnerships for Ecotourism’ (SHAPE). SHAPE will enable authorities, businesses and communities to develop innovative ecotourism initiatives which preserve local assets and create economic value from them. Twenty participants from the project partners have met in Dumfries to begin work on the project.
The project partners are biosphere reserves and regional parks (Sustainable Heritage Areas, or SHAs) and universities from Finland (Karelia University of Applied Sciences; Centre for Economic Development, Transport and Environment for North Karelia), Norway (Nordhordland Development), Greenland (Kujalleq Municipality), Iceland (Snaefellsnes regional park) and Scotland (University of the Highlands and Islands, Southern Uplands Partnership, Wester Ross Biosphere). SHAPE also involves 33 associated partners from Canada, Faroes, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Norway, and Sweden.
The idea behind SHAPE is that, effectively implemented, ecotourism can preserve rather than destroy the natural and cultural heritage of SHAs while increasing visitors’ understanding, providing jobs, and strengthening community cohesion. SHAPE aims to gather practical solutions and make them available to communities struggling with similar challenges.
To achieve its goals, SHAPE will bring together stakeholders who rarely collaborate (such as from natural/cultural heritage, agriculture, fisheries and tourism) and have sometimes been in conflict, to identify common goals for developing ecotourism initiatives and working together to realise them. Drawing together public and private sector stakeholders to develop these initiatives, and test and share new approaches, will result in SHAPE’s principal output: an online open-access service to support and facilitate effective management and utilisation of environmental and cultural assets in SHAs and protected areas.