The Biodiversity Foundation and GOB Menorca have presented the seminars on agriculture and the environment.

The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Ana Leiva, participated, on Wednesday, January 19, in a press conference to update the stewardship actions carried out in Menorca. Among them, it has been reported that on January 29, February 5 and 12, the seminars on agriculture and the environment will be held, which are part of the project ‘Sowing custody’, promoted by GOB Menorca with the support of the Biodiversity Foundation.

The event, held at the headquarters of the Island Council of Menorca, was also attended by, among others, the Island Director of Agriculture Clara Fullana, and the representative of the GOB Menorca, Núria Llabrés.

In line with the Natural Heritage and Biodiversity Law and the 2007 Law for the Sustainable Development of the Rural Environment, the “Sowing Custody” project seeks to involve owners and farmers in the conservation of biodiversity and the landscape, through the maintenance of sustainable agricultural activity. To do this, it uses voluntary agreements with the private sector, which aim to ensure that production is compatible with the main territorial and environmental values.

In this sense, actions of double benefit (environmental and agricultural) are carried out and the dissemination of the great potential that stewardship can represent applied to the Spanish agricultural field is promoted.

In the Balearic Islands, there are 189 land stewardship agreements on record, 174 of which have been signed in Menorca (22 of them, promoted by GOB Menorca). The total area with custody agreements on the island is 25,000 hectares, 31 percent of the territory.

Land stewardship is, therefore, one more tool for the preservation of natural heritage in a territory that, like Menorca, already has important instruments for the protection of biodiversity (it should be remembered that the island is incorporated into the figure of UNESCO Biosphere Reserve). In addition, most of its agricultural land is Protected Rustic Land and the wooded areas are classified as a Natural Area of Special Interest. Some communities and geographical spaces even fall into what is called land with a High Level of Protection.

In terms of species protection, it can be highlighted that the territorial management promoted in agricultural stewardship agreements (maintenance of perimeter hedges, mosaic vegetation, resting cultivation areas, etc.) benefits a large part of species and habitats, by offering refuges and good environmental conditions at the different levels of natural food webs. It also seeks to reinforce the positive environmental effects for certain species of special interest, such as the red kite, in danger of extinction.