HISTORY:

The Green Flag Trails program was developed in 2006 by Professor M.L. Hugo at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. The goal was to create an objective, science-based system for assessing hiking trails, focusing on aspects such as safety, environmental responsibility, difficulty level, and infrastructure.

OWNERSHIP:

In 2019 the WTN purchased the program including the full IP rights with money that was generated by the GFT program itself (GFT auditors training). 

REVAMP TO GFT 2.0:

In April 2023 the WTN board initially decided to shut down and potentially sell the programme after some members of the board raised concerns around liability, organizational and financial uncertainty.

Hartmut Wimmer and others then intervened and convinced the WTN board not to sell the product and to revamp it instead, because such a standardization and certification programme under the umbrella of the WTN is a great opportunity for positioning and because the WTN is the right global organization for it and was the original reason why the WTN invested in purchasing the programme. 

In June 2023 it was decided to form a working group to revamp the GFT Programme and to continue the work of re-aligning and updating the programme which had begun in 2019. The members of the working group were: Julian Gray, Mathieu Roy, András Molnar, Galeo Saintz, Fivos Tsaravopoulos, Hartmut Wimmer.

Since 2024 the GFT Team consists of András Molnar, Galeo Saintz, Fivos Tsaravopoulos, Hartmut Wimmer and Manuel Franco.

The GFT team currently consists of 5 people with different roles.