- This roadmap for the period 2023-2027 was shared today during the 13th meeting of the Participation Committee of the Land Stewardship Platform, which is coordinated by MITECO’s Biodiversity Foundation.
- It proposes a new shared working framework and strategic objectives to respond to the new demands identified in the field of land stewardship in Spain.
June 12, 2023- June 12, 2023- June 12, 2023- June 12, 2023- June 12, 2023 The Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has presented today, during the meeting of the 13th Participation Committee of the Land Stewardship Platform, a strategy for the period 2023-2027 which seeks to promote land stewardship in an innovative way, in alliance with the networks and groups of the different groups involved, as a fundamental tool for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.
The objectives and actions of this roadmap were shared during the meeting of this Committee, which acts as a meeting forum for entities, public administrations, organizations and networks that work in land stewardship agreements and represent relevant sectors for the promotion of this conservation tool. This meeting was attended by the general director of Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification of the MITECO, María Jesús Rodríguez de Sancho, and the director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Elena Pita.
The development of the strategy has been based on a diagnosis of the situation of land stewardship in Spain and the work of the Land Stewardship Platform since its inception 15 years ago, followed by a participatory process that has allowed to gather proposals for this new stage of the platform.
Specifically, a working framework and strategic objectives are proposed to respond to the new demands identified in the field of land stewardship in Spain, as well as to promote stewardship initiatives and the entities that manage them.
In the coming years, the aim is to achieve a more qualified group of stewards; better access to useful technical resources, the dynamization of tools and communication; the improvement of monitoring and evaluation processes of the results obtained; the promotion of public policies in this area with a special focus on greater legal security and economic incentives linked to the effectiveness of agreements in the conservation and restoration of biodiversity; as well as the promotion of national and international funding opportunities.
VALORIZATION OF LAND STEWARDSHIP
During the Participation Committee, the great potential of land stewardship in the direct involvement of people and civil society to conserve and recover biodiversity was highlighted, as well as the work of the Land Stewardship Platform to generate alliances.
Fundación Biodiversidad has been coordinating this platform since 2007 with the aim of contributing to the promotion of stewardship as a management tool for the conservation of natural, cultural and landscape resources, as well as promoting the creation of meeting places for stewardship organizations to exchange experiences and foster cooperation.
In addition, land stewardship is promoted by the Fundación Biodiversidad through other instruments, such as calls for grants to support projects and actions related to this conservation tool.
In this line, more than 120 land stewardship projects have been supported through calls for grants, which have contributed to favor, for example, the habitat of endangered species; to implement measures to support the management of the Natura 2000 Network or to develop tools to improve urban green areas to act against climate change, among other initiatives.
Along these lines, new calls for grants have been launched, within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), financed by the European Union – NextGenerationEU, which can also contribute to strengthening land stewardship. This is the case of the call for grants to support transformational projects for the promotion of the bioeconomy linked to forestry and the contribution to the ecological transition and the demographic challenge, whose deadline for submission of proposals is open until June 30, 2023.
Likewise, other projects of the European Union’s LIFE Program, coordinated by Fundación Biodiversidad, are promoting land stewardship actions. This is the case of LIFE Cerceta Pardilla, in which at least 15 stewardship agreements will be formalized until the end of the project in 2025, with the objective of improving the habitat of this critically endangered species.
