Spanish universities are committed to land stewardship as an innovative tool for biodiversity conservation based on voluntarism and citizen participation. This has been made clear at the meeting that the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), which coordinates the Land Stewardship Platform, and the University of Granada (UGR) have held in Madrid with the participation of more than fifteen specialists and representatives of various university institutions from seven autonomous communities. During the conference, which took place at the headquarters of the Biodiversity Foundation, the great potential of universities to increase the positive environmental, cultural, economic and social impact they have on their immediate territory through the promotion of stewardship agreements was highlighted.

In this line, the University of Granada, through the Biocultural Archaeology Laboratory (MEMOLab), is one of the pioneering academic institutions in Spain to participate as a custodian. Specifically, although it has been exercising stewardship with historical and traditional irrigation communities in Andalusia for more than ten years, and has already signed eight agreements.

Thanks to this framework, the UGR supports the governance and management of spaces of high cultural and environmental value with volunteer campaigns, facilitation and dialogue between key actors, research initiatives and cataloguing or shared search for sources of funding for the conservation of these cultural systems, so that they remain active, healthy and sustainable to face challenges such as climate change, food sovereignty, a sustainable irrigation and agricultural system or rural depopulation. In recent years, a path of collaboration has been opened in other Spanish universities with the involvement of custodian entities, owners and other institutions. Some of them shared their experiences during the meeting, which laid the foundations for establishing a roadmap of the possibilities of universities as entities and promoters of stewardship in Spain. During the day, the strategic lines for the renewal of the Land Stewardship Platform were also announced, which begins a new stage on its 15th anniversary as a meeting and support point for land stewardship networks and entities in order to respond to the new needs and demands identified in the field of land stewardship in Spain.