Nature experience for impaired people and tourism for all is an important topic in the EU. Destinations like national parks, nature reserves and other locations for nature experience begin to implement such offers. Hence, guidance for such destinations is missing to judge on the prerequisites onsite and to enable decision makers to start with implementing relevant installations and alterations. A good catalogue of nature education activities for environmental educationists is still missing. The German Association of Blind and Visually Impaired People has invented guidelines for nature trails and other purposes. Partners from environmental education organisations in Germany, Poland, Hungary and Spain active in European lake regions in this project also collected expertise in some aspects of that topic. Together, we want to incorporate these experiences in the Lakes without Limits project, broaden our own knowledge, and pass it to the others.Lakes without Limits aims on working to improve adult education for nature experience by developing, testing and disseminating educational material to foster skills of environmental educationists with respect to disabled people. It will provide guidance for two questions:1. How can environmental educationists improve their offer for guided nature experience with impaired people? These educationists can either be employed in a nature conservation centre, or freelancer or volunteers.2. How can nature trails be prepared and/or altered for the unaccompanied use of impaired people. The target group here are managers and environmental educationists responsible for such trails.The material developed will enable its users setting of personal pedagogical goals and following the success thanks to correspondent checklists. The whole material will be available for the broad audience. Concrete examples for work with impaired people on nature conservation/experience will be produced: barrier free brochures, audio guides, 3D-Material, Sign- and Simple Language Films.The focus will be on tourist destinations in participating countries Poland, Hungary, Germany, and Spain, as well as areas of special conservation interest.With this, we want to bring forward the inclusion of disabled persons in the EU and foster the sensitivity to nature for all Europeans. We wish to generate momentum for nature experience for impaired people.

People’s understanding of the concept of biodiversity varies greatly. The situation of biodiversity in the EU 27 is not very positive. Even countries like Germany regarded as “pioneers” in promoting biodiversity are making hardly any tangible progress. According to the survey conducted by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, the consciousness of the concept of biodiversity did not change since 2005, oscillating around 25%. The TEEB-studies (http://www.teebweb.org) for different European countries show, that governments in Europe start to understand (and measure) different biodiversity aspects, as its value for people, but common understanding is generally weak and the fulfillment of EU strategies and regulations for biodiversity is extremely poor. These observations indicate a lack in the educational system on biodiversity, both in methodology and implementation. Therefore, in order to push changes, an important goal is to teach citizens about the meaning of biodiversity loss and the important issues related to it.How to raise awareness for biodiversity in European countries? One of the answers is to put in action more comprehensive pedagogical practices on biodiversity. Citizens need to find themselves at the heart of the debate, to become actors of change and be emotionally linked to the issue. They need to understand how the behavior of a single individual in the everyday life is strictly connected to biodiversity loss; this process will help to show options for acting. Education is a long-term project, and of course, this project can be based on decades of experience in many EU MS. What we want to provide is a synthesis of experiences from experts in several EU MS to produce comprehensive educational material on biodiversity. The developed tools will support educators to “Inspire People for Biodiversity”. Within the project, the following activities will be implemented: - State of the art & training analyses: Assessment of the training needs of citizens, their understanding of the topic biodiversity; the assessment of the pedagogical offer of available initiatives/tools on biodiversity. - Pedagogical programme setting & best practice exchange: Development of a programme covering 6 educational “focus areas” on biodiversity with regard to implementation in the everyday life.- Development of innovative pedagogical material and accompanying guide: Creation of a set of pedagogical materials taking into account current needs and developments in education on biodiversity: 30 tools in 5 “focus areas”. An accompanying guide will be provided to facilitate the use of the material. All tools will be tested within the frame of special events to collect feedback from both trainers and citizens.- Development of a set of pedagogical communication tools: It will include interactive educational posters, thematic video, webinar structure etc. for separate presentations of the theme as well as pedagogical materials, in particular for trainers and stakeholders working/planning to work on biodiversity education. This output will be complemented by dissemination activities throughout the project.- 12 Multiplier events for dissemination of project results in addition to general dissemination.The aim of this project is to develop a strategic partnership at European level in order to assess practices concerning the education of adults on biodiversity and to improve the quality and offer of such. The project aims to develop a set of innovative and successful pedagogical material on biodiversity and a specific guide to the attention of European CSOs and other stakeholders. The project will provide a tool kit for educators working on this topic, helping people to better understand the concept of biodiversity, the connection with daily life, and to increase the general level of consciousness on biodiversity. The materials developed will be available for broad public.The project contributes both to strengthening the educational work of individual organisations in respective countries and finding common solutions at European level. Cooperation is an opportunity to fundamentally change the situation. Launching a European project helps to improve and increase the means of action for stakeholders on this particular topic Europe wide.Humans highly depend on biodiversity: ecosystems and related services provide us with food, medicines and raw materials, deliver many other services. According to the European Commission, biological diversity is one of the main topics on EU-working agenda. The global biodiversity loss is stated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN): 12,259 species are threatened with extinction, 75% of genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost, 75% of the world’s fisheries are fully or over exploited. In this context, it is urgent to implement effective measures and learn to deal with biodiversity, so that future generations can enjoy living in a diverse world.