The Biodiversity Foundation, a public foundation of the Government of Spain, under the Ministry of the Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs, participates in the “VIII Inter-American Congress of Private Conservation” that is being held from December 10 to 12 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Alliance of Latin American Private Conservation Networks promotes this meeting organized by The Nature Conservancy, the BioAtlantica Institute, the Natural Heritage Association of Rio de Janeiro and the State Institute of Forests Foundation.

The Biodiversity Foundation and the Land Stewardship Platform actively participate in this meeting by collaborating with the organizing committee in the preparation and development of some of the activities of this event, as well as through their intervention in different sessions. The Biodiversity Foundation intervenes today in the first session in which the role of governments and public policies for conservation on private lands is addressed with the presentation “Land Stewardship: conservation on private lands in Spain”. He also coordinates the round table on private conservation networks. Through this participation, the aim is to raise awareness of land stewardship, its evolution in the whole of the Spanish State, the activities of both this institution and the Land Stewardship Platform and to analyse the possibilities of creating an “Ibero-American network of private conservation”.

Due to the extensive experience in Latin America in land stewardship, this event is a unique opportunity to learn and exchange knowledge between the stewardship entities of the Spanish State and those in Latin America.

THE BIODIVERSITY FOUNDATION AND THE LAND STEWARDSHIP PLATFORM

The Land Stewardship Platform is an initiative of the Biodiversity Foundation that arises as a result of its growing involvement in recent years with this tool for the conservation of natural heritage and the landscape, and the result of the commitment achieved by this entity with the land stewardship movement.

The Land Stewardship Platform seeks to become a meeting place for all the land stewardship networks and entities that carry out their activity in the Spanish State, providing them with support and encouraging them to continue working in this line.

In addition to seeking the collaboration of all the actors in the stewardship movement to develop the different activities of the Platform and to promote this conservation tool in our country, the Platform proposes different objectives such as contributing to the enhancement of stewardship as a viable management tool for the conservation of natural resources, cultural and landscape; to promote the creation of meeting spaces for custodian entities to exchange knowledge and experiences; compile and update specialised databases on custodial entities and their specific activity; to promote cooperation between them; disseminate reference documents for stewardship activities that may be generated in the context of the stewardship movement, as well as prepare documents and reports of analysis, synthesis and debate that are of interest to these entities; and to offer updated information on custody in Spanish territory.