Park-labeled products as a tool for innovation and regional development
Florian Knaus, UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Entlebuch, Schuepfheim (CH)
A recent trend to stimulate development in Parks is the sale of park-labeled products. Until now, it was unclear how strong the economic impact of this approach is for a park-economy. We addressed this this gap by estimating the gross added value generated by labeled products in the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Entlebuch, Switzerland. Results show that after a management-guided phase of building up credibility, identity, and innovations, labeled products generated a remarkable gross added value of US$ 5.8 million in 2014. This corresponds to 4% of the jobs in agriculture and forestry.