The ALPARC General Assembly was held in Les Contamines Montjoies France on 25th January 2019 traditionally within the context of the yearly Memorial Danilo Re (24th edition) which took place in the Contamines Natural Reserve (ASTERS, France). The Memorial and General Assembly coincided with the 40th anniversary of the Natural Reserve.
 
The General Assembly was held in the presence of the Ambassador and General Secretary of the Alpine Convention, Markus Reiterer, the representative of the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, Simone Remund and the representative of the CGET Philipphe Matheron. Moreover, the representatives of the of the Auvergne Rhone-Alpes Region, Genevieve Borodine and the representative of the Sud Region Robert Gentili were also present.
The members of all the protected areas and of every category were well represented and this enabled the Assembly to validate the reports of the president, the treasurer and the director , the activity programme 2018- 2019 as well as the budget for 2019

Other important issues debated at the General Assembly concerned the new Alpine Space projects presented for the 4th Call of the Programme and the ongoing activities of the current European projects: ALPBIONET2030 , YOUrALPS and GaYA. The perspectives and futures of ALPARC’s actions were discussed. In this frame, the members approved the elaboration of three-year programme from 2020 and voted for a larger consultation of the members via workshops for the elaboration of the new programme. The role of ALPARC within the Alpine Convention and the Alpine Macro-regional Strategy was confirmed

The members also approved the concept of an event for the 25th anniversary of ALPARC, as a tour in the Alps bringing a common message and to link in to the IUCN Word Conference in Marseille. The members also validated the establishment of the ALPARC regional platform in the central Alps (Bavaria) with a legal entity directly linked to the ALPARC network in order to get access to new support and members on a regional and transboundary level.

A big thank you to ASTERS for holding a very constructive General Assembly whose decisions clearly show that ALPARC is open to the reinforcement of a shared cooperation between the alpine protected areas.