The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Sonia Castañeda, chaired the annual meeting of the Advisory Council of the Land Stewardship Platform, an advisory body of this initiative that aims to promote the development of land stewardship throughout the Spanish State as a tool for the conservation of natural heritage and which is a meeting place for all the networks and stewardship entities in the country.

The meeting was also attended by representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment and agents related to land stewardship, such as land stewardship networks, Europarc-Spain, hunting societies and associations linked to the rural environment.

During the meeting, the land stewardship actions promoted by the Biodiversity Foundation were presented, such as the Beaches, Rivers, Volunteering and Land Stewardship Programme, LIFE+ Cantabrian Capercaillie or activities framed in the 2015 call for grants. The Foundation allocated more than €300,000 to land stewardship in 2015, of which more than €180,000 to land stewardship initiatives within the framework of the call for grants.

Land stewardship actions contribute to the conservation of species such as the Cantabrian capercaillie. To date, 29 agreements have been signed within the framework of the LIFE+ Cantabrian Capercaillie project. Through these stewardship agreements, neighbourhood councils, guards, beekeepers, livestock farmers, hunters, young entrepreneurs and inhabitants of rural areas have been involved in 19 initiatives that favour the habitat of this emblematic species of the Cantabrian Mountains.

During the meeting, the results of the IV Inventory of Land Stewardship Initiatives of the Spanish State were presented, prepared by the Land Stewardship Platform of the Biodiversity Foundation and which contains the compilation of all the land stewardship initiatives carried out in Spain in the last two years.

Likewise, the Land Stewardship Manual for Public Administrations has been presented. This document has been prepared to respond to the need to disseminate and deepen the issue of custody among the actors of the Administration.

Finally, the activities that will be carried out within the framework of the Platform throughout 2016 have been discussed, including the dynamization of meeting spaces to continue advancing in the creation of a registry of stewardship initiatives, the preparation of a Manual on financing for stewardship or the dissemination of the IV Inventory and the Manual for Public Administrations.