Federico Ramos visits the actions carried out within the framework of the project “Actions for the Conservation of the Cantabrian Bear”

The Secretary of State for the Environment, Federico Ramos, today visited the actions carried out within the framework of the different projects launched for the conservation of the species by the Brown Bear Foundation (FOP) with the support of the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment.
 
Ramos was accompanied during the visit by the general director of Environmental Quality and Assessment and the Natural Environment, Guillermina Yanguas, by the director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Sonia Castañeda, and by the director of the Brown Bear Foundation (FOP), Guillermo Palomero.
 
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment works for the conservation of endangered species, within the framework of the National Conservation Strategies, and an example of this are the actions developed to preserve the survival of the brown bear in the Natural Park of the Fuentes del Narcea, Degaña and Ibias (Asturias) and in the province of León.
 
In recent years, the Ministry, through the Biodiversity Foundation, has co-financed several projects that seek the conservation of the Cantabrian bear, in which the FOP has invested more than 2 million euros.
 
These projects aim to contribute to the elimination of bear deaths caused by the human factor, to favour the beekeeping sector by reducing conflict with the bear through the protection of its facilities, to create and maintain employment in rural areas, to contribute to the monitoring of the Cantabrian bear population, and to promote information on the species and environmental education activities. training and nature tourism.
 
In addition, they mean the creation of 20 jobs in rural areas. For the execution of the actions to search for illegal traps and to monitor the bear population, there is the collaboration and involvement of the hunters, with whom different agreements have been signed, and which are added to those signed with the Royal Spanish Hunting Federation to cover the actions of compatibility of hunting activity and the conservation of the bear.
 
MORE THAN 200 COPIES
After 20 years of collaboration, the bear population has reached more than 200 specimens with a favorable scenario, when in 1994 the bear population in the Cantabrian Mountains was going through a critical phase in which there were only about 70. Thanks to these projects, this species has become a local economic engine and one of the most outstanding tourism elements in the area.
 
During the day, Ramos also visited the Babia Biosphere Reserve in León, the plantations in Corredor de Leitariegos (Cangas del Narcea) and the Interpopulation Corridor (Sena-Barrios de Luna, León) to see the permeability problems of the main barrier between the two subpopulations of the bear: the AP-66, where the LIFE Corredores has been developed. also supported by the Biodiversity Foundation and the LIFE Bear Defragmentation is currently being executed.
 
BROWN BEAR FOUNDATION
The Brown Bear Foundation, directed by Guillermo Palomero, is a conservationist NGO that, since 1992, has been working to contribute to the study and conservation of the brown bear, its habitat and the cultural environment in which this endangered species develops. Their work is based on the development of management experiences that demonstrate the viability of coexistence between humans and a wild bear population.