NatureBeST project was presented in a nature tourism webinar

Submitted by KA5041 on
Screenshots of the webinar

Projects working with sustainable nature tourism shared their work in a webinar organized by the Working Group on Environment (WGE) of Barents Euro-Arctic cooperation (BEAC)

Project partners CEDTENK and Petroskoi State University took part in the webinar and CEDTENK presented the NatureBeST project. Webinar had more than 40 participants from four countries, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia and from at least 29 different organisations. The participants were members of the BEAC, its cooperators or stakeholders. The webinar was an opportunity to disseminate the results of projects and interact with other similar projects in the Barents region.

Other projects that were presented included PAN - Phenomena of Arctic Nature (KO2093), SUPER: Sustainability Under Pressure: Environmental Resilience in natural and cultural heritage areas with intensive recreation (KA5033), Developing Low Carbon and Economically Sustainable Tourism in Lapland and presentation on Vindelälven-Juhttátahkka Biosphere Reserve and it’s potential of nature tourism.

Projects presented shared views on e.g. how to improve resiliece of areas to the high tourist pressure, on the ethical guidelines for Sami tourism and on the proximity tourism.

The topics for discussion after all the presentations focused on how nature tourism sector could strengthen the responsible tourism approaches, especially taking into account the responses to the post-covid recovery, what kind of needs there are for cross-border cooperation and could Barents cooperation actors give support in this effort and on how to enhance possibilities, ways and means to implement and disseminate the results of the projects.

The improvements on the infrastructure on Russian side were considered important by the Russian participants and the point of not focusing on mass tourism and rather on the quality of the visits - the length of the visit and use of local services was raised on the Finnish side.

The webinar was the first one in the series of webinars organized by the BEAC WGE. Recording of the webinar will be available at:, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7EXjrAi0lwHIBBSZQN5-8A. The next webinar organized in the beginning of next year will focus on the circular economy.