We have participated in the 1st Symposium on the Conservation of Fontinal Ecosystems (SICEF19), a scientific meeting that aims to launch a national and European strategy for the protection and conservation of natural sources.

Today, in Barcelona, we have participated in the 1st Symposium on the Conservation of Fontinal Ecosystems (SICEF19), a scientific meeting that aims to launch a national and European strategy for the protection and conservation of natural springs.

The Symposium, organised by the scientific entity BIOSCICAT –Catalan Society of Sciences for the Conservation of Biodiversity, is part of the Natural Sources Programme, which has our support, through the 2016 and 2017 calls for grants for projects in the field of adaptation to climate change. Our director, Sonia Castañeda, spoke at the opening session, in which she stressed that “to talk about water is to talk about life. This phrase makes even more sense in Mediterranean mountain systems with very long dry seasons and a temporary hydrological network.”

As part of SICEF19, a tribute was paid to Eduard Punset, who recently passed away. The trailer of the latest work in which the science communicator participated, the filming of “Someretes al Cap” (Dreaming of Someretas), a documentary film, in which we have collaborated, and where Punset allied with cinema to claim respect for nature, has been shown. The film narrates Eduard Punset’s childhood.

Natural Sources Program

The Natural Springs Programme aims to explore and reveal for the first time the biological richness of natural springs, thus demonstrating that fountain environments could be the richest habitats in biodiversity of Mediterranean continental ecosystems, but at the same time the most unknown, fragile, tiny and scarce, as well as the most vulnerable to climate change.

The research work has made it possible to demonstrate that natural springs are authentic oases of life, but also to obtain a better understanding of the structure and functioning of the fontanal ecosystem in mountain areas (both continental and insular), of the threats that affect them and of their state of conservation, as well as to lay the first foundations for their management and management. Among the results and conclusions obtained, it is worth highlighting the fact that all the sources studied have exclusive biological communities that are different from those of the rest of the sources, a fact that makes each of these small habitats a unique and unrepeatable biological universe, and underlines their fragility and the importance of their conservation.