The winners of this year's Alfred Toepfer Award and Scholarships

The winners of the Alfred Toepfer Award and Scholarships are announced and presented by the EUROPARC Federation together with the Alfred Toepfer Foundation every year at the EUROPARC Annual Assembly and this year was no exception.

The Alfred Toepfer Award

The Alfred Toepfer Award is named after the founder of the EUROPARC Federation, Dr H.C. Alfred Toepfer. Each year EUROPARC members are asked to nominate individuals whose work in the field of protected areas they feel should be recognised.

This year the winner of the Medal was the retired Romanian forester Mr Walter Frank who was nominated by EUROPARC Germany for his fantastic work with Romania's ancient beech forests. In the Laudatio given by Dr Johannes Hager Mr Frank's dedication to the protection of these forests was emphasised. Dr Hager stated that Mr Frank's "continuous contributions to the Romanian forestry administration Romsilva and to the corresponding government as well as to the IUCN in Geneva meant that around 2600 ha of valuable natural and ancient forest in this area was placed under protection by the Government and encompassed into the NATURA 2000 network".

After accepting his medal Walter Frank said that he felt a great honour to be receiving the medal and that the medal was worth giving to the area of natural secular, virgin and semi-virgin Rusca Montana forest "referred to as an undiscovered treasure at the heart of the Poiana Rusca Mountains". He stressed the need to protect a larger area of the forest stating that only 1575 ha (23%) are under legal protection [...]. Another 4055 ha have been exploited, or will be destroyed in the near future. Only a further 1235 ha remains intact".

The EUROPARC Federation wishes Mr Frank success in the fight for the protection of these forests and offers the support of the Federation in that campaign.

The Laudatio from Dr Hager and Herr Franks speech can be downloaded below.

The Alfred Toepfer Scholarships

During the annual conference the Alfred Toepfer Scholarships were also awarded. These scholarships are awarded each year to promising young conservationists with practical experience in the field of conservation and in the work of protected areas. The scholarships provide an opportunity to undertake a study visit to one or more protected areas in another European country and to gather experience which will be of benefit in their future careers.

This year the scholarships were awarded to Rachel Bland (UK), who will study fire management in protected areas as well as examine marine protected areas in Greece, David Rodriguez (S), will visit the less well known country of Moldova and report back to us on their protected area management system and finally Razvan Deju (Ro) who will study Bison management in Poland with the hope of to reintroducing them into Romania.

The awards, each worth EUR 3000 generously donated by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation (D), were presented to the winners by Mr Holz from the Foundation. We will publish news of their travels on the website and look forward to reading their reports on their return.