How Regional Natural Parks work
The Regional Natural Parks' network has been created to protect and emphasise great rural inhabited spaces. A mainly rural territory where landscape, natural environment, and cultural heritage are of great quality but in a fragile balance may be designated as "Regional Natural Park".
A regional natural park is organized around a project regarding sustainable development, based on protecting and developing its natural and cultural heritage.
The project of developing regional natural parks is based on protecting natural, cultural, and human resources (popular traditions, technical know-how).
Classification of regional natural parks is evidenced only for territories where the heritage's relevance is remarkable for the region and has enough elements acknowledged nationally and/or internationally.
Presently, there are 45 regional natural parks in France that represent 13% of French territory, 3707 villages, more than 7 million hectares, and more than 3 million inhabitants.
The Federation of Regional Natural Parks of France is the representative of the network of Regional Natural Parks.
www.parcs-naturels-regionaux.fr
The Haute Vallée de Chevreuse Regional Natural Park is open to everyone and is made up of 21 towns and villages which contain remarkable natural, cultural and historic sites. It is not a leisure centre nor a museum; this is a place where people live and which is evolving over time.
Close to Paris, bordering the new town of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines,
the Haute Vallée de Chevreuse remains a dominantly rural region which is amongst the most beautiful and covetable in the Ile-de-France. That is why the towns and villages, the Department of Yvelines and the Ile-de-France Region decided in 1985 to preserve these places which have been moulded by time whilst developing human activities which are environmentally-friendly: the Regional Natural Park was the result.
Information
1st Park created in the Ile-de-France in 1985
21 towns and villages,
46,000 inhabitants
25,000 hectares (including 11,000 of forest and close to 1,000 buildings listed in the general inventory of historic monuments)
250km of footpaths See the Village Heritage section to get more details about each town and village
To find out more
What is a Regional Natural Park? What is the difference between a RNP and a National Park or a Nature Reserve? Why and how was it created? What does it protect? What are the implicated constraints? Who arbitrates between the often divergent interests in the Park? Download the Parks Leaflet: 50 questions and answers about Regional Natural Parks. More details on the French Federation of Regional Natural Parks' website.
History and Charter
When the Park was created a charter was drawn up by the partners (Communes, Département, Région) and ratified by the Ministry of the Environment. This contractual document, which must be revised every ten years, sets the objectives and the collective project that the Park should implement. A detailed brief is drawn up in advance to take stock of the territory's pressing issues: the specificities, the dangers to which it is exposed, local constraints and potential. When the charter is revised, actions performed are evaluated in order to redifine a new territorial project. A mixed syndicate is then in charge of applying these strategies. The Haute Vallée de Chevreuse Charter is a charter adopted for 1999-2009. It is built around 4 axes:
1 - TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT
2 - PROTECTING AND VALUING HERITAGE
3 - KEEPING THE TERRITORY ALIVE
4 - PARK PROJECT LEGISLATION Although the Park authorities have quite limited statutory power in realtion to private individuals or local authorities and no direct legal competence, it can still play an important role in inciting action. Engineering, consultancy, recommendations and financial support are, indeed, at the heart of its operations. Moreover, the vocation of the Park authorities is also to coordinate interventions by public powers on its territory and to carry out experimental or exemplary actions and contribute to research programmes. Schema of the Park project; to view all information on the current revision of the charter, click here.
The mixed syndicate is made up of:
A management body which implements the charter
Syndicate Committee The Park's decision making body is made up of 31 elected deligates who decide on the annual programme of actions and vote on the operating and investment budgets.
Syndicate Office Eleven elected officials appointed by the committee prepare the budget. The office may confer reflections on specific themes upon the commissions. The Syndicate Committee may delegate the settling of certain affairs to the office, for example the appoval of contracts and agreements.
Commissions These consultative bodies for exchange and arbitration bring together elected representatives, partners, associations and technicians. They take stock of needs and lobby for and manage action programmes. Click here to see all protagonists.
The technical team This multidisciplinary team implements the action programmes at ground level and can also generate proposals to the elected representatives. For more information or to contact the technical team, click here.
The budget
The Regional Natural Park has autonomous operational and equipment budgets which are governed by the local authorities' accounting rules. It does not draw upon any direct taxes and is supported only by its allocated subsidies.
Its operational budget is fed by contributions from members of the body, i.e. the Ile-de-France Regional Council, Yvelines General Council and the Communes. This is complemented by a contribution from the Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Territorial Management in the context of State/Regions project contracts.
The last Park Administrative Account (2007 turnover) illustrates as follows the actions carried out by each operational area.
|
Operational Budget |
So-called "off the programme" section, corresponding to the cost of functional and operational employment and the Mixed Syndicate and technical team's general expenses |
€889,933.08 |
50% of expenditure for the financial year |
|
Operational Programmes |
Actions carried out by the Park: · subsidies - communes, · subsidies - farmers, tradesmen, salespeople, etc. · study design work · editing and publishing work · engineering and external service provision |
€823,303,38 €130,857 €74,638 €54,502 €200,840 |
47% of expenditure for the financial year |
|
Investment Operations |
Operations concerning the Park's heritage: river work, signage equipment, gîtes d’étapes (hikers' accommodation), IT equipment, etc. |
€49,965.67 |
3% of expenditure for the financial year |
A new Park contract, approved by the State and deliberation assemblies for the Ile-de-France Region, Département of Yvelines and the Haute Vallée de Chevreuse Regional Natural Park, was signed at the beginning of the year 2008.
Financing set out for action programmes and structural costs amounts to €22,081,850. The objective of the Park contract is to safeguard a high quality rural area in the South West of the Ile-de-France for all, to conserve, value and publicise its exceptional natural, cultural and historical heritage, to promote economic development which respects the environment, to contribute to the development of this territory and to carry out experimental and exemplary actions within these sectors.
Click here to see the detail of the 2007-2013 Park Contract.
