In:2nd Swiss Geosciences Meeting, Lausanne, 2004, 274-275. Quality Assessment and Certification of Swiss Geoparks

Geosite assessment has been developping within the Swiss Academy of Sciences for more than ten years. A strategic report was published in 1995 (Strasser et al. 1995) and a first inventory with more than 400 objects of national significance was presented in 1998 (SAS 1999). Figure 1: Simplified Tectonic Map of Switzerland and the Location of Geoparks Since then, several initiatives have been taken in several parts of Switzerland to create geoparks. A first small geopark, Il Parco delle Gole della Breggia, was established in 2001 in the Canton of Tessin within a valley eroded in a stratigraphic cut representing more than 80 million years of Earth History (Jurassic-Present). An action, financed by the program Interreg IIIa, is currently developing in the whole Insubric region around the Monte San Giorgio for creating an Insubric Geopark. The Geopark Sarganserland-Walensee-Glarnerland covers a surface of about 1300 km2 in Eastern Switzerland. It was initiated at the end of the 1990s by local geologists and was partly financed by the Swiss regional development programme Regio Plus until 2004. The focus is on structural geology and the mining industry (Imper 2003). Two other geoparks are currently in the planning phase, respectively in the Engadin and Adjacent Valleys (South-eastern Switzerland), including the current Swiss Nationa