Today is the International Day of Forests, an event proclaimed in 2012 by the United Nations General Assembly in order to highlight the importance of all types of forests and to underline the need to raise awareness about them. The theme chosen for 2023 is “Forests and health“, a call that calls for the care of our forests beyond the benefits they bring to people, not only for physical and mental health, but also through resources such as wild foods, medicines or fuels. With this, the message aims to emphasize the idea that, through healthy forests, strong and healthy populations are achieved. Despite their ecological, economic, and social benefits, these ecosystems are affected by threats such as deforestation and overexploitation of resources. In addition, according to the IPCC Special Report, drought, desertification, and other extreme weather events increase in frequency and intensity as the planet warms. In this sense, the role of forests in buffering heat exposure is key. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the arrangement of trees around buildings in urban environments contributes to cooling the air and can reduce air conditioning needs by up to 30%, which also implies energy savings. In addition, forests occupy a third of the planet’s surface, act as carbon sinks, absorbing approximately 2.1 million tonnes of carbon per year and are home to 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. However, the 2022 State of the World’s Forests (SOFO) report notes that between 2000 and 2020, around 47 million hectares of primary forests were lost and that although the rate of deforestation is decreasing, in the period between 2015 and 2020, the area of forest lost rose to 10 million hectares per year. For all these reasons, in order to avoid environmental deterioration, the loss of biodiversity, mitigate the effects of climate change and move towards a resilient and sustainable economy, the document underlines the importance of conserving forests, restoring degraded lands and making sustainable use of these ecosystems.

In this line, the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) contributes to the improvement of the conservation status of forests and the sustainable management of their forest resources through different projects of the 2021 call for grants for the promotion of the bioeconomy and the contribution to the ecological transition. within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (RTRP), funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU Thus, BIOVALOR aims to develop new value chains around sustainable forest management and the cultivation of native aromatic species on marginal lands for the production of essential oils, extracts and by-products with high added value. For its part, From the forest to your home aims to generate innovative economic initiatives led by women, to sustainably take advantage of non-timber forest products from Spanish forests. Monumental olive groves for biodiversity seeks to analyse the state of conservation of old and monumental olive grove estates for their restoration and the implementation of a sustainable agricultural management model that allows the production of high-quality organic olive oil linked to the improvement of biodiversity and the conservation of heritage. as well as the creation of ecotourism resources linked to the olive grove. Compás aims to establish the scientific-technical, regulatory and social framework necessary in Spain for the use of pyric herbivory in preventive forest management against large fires. This initiative stresses the importance of managing the natural territory for its conservation and the fundamental role of the new generations linked to the rural environment as key agents in its protection. Finally, Somos Agua II proposes to generate a micro-enterprise fabric, which promotes a transformative circular bioeconomy in an unpopulated territory of high and medium mountains. To this end, it will rely on traditional knowledge and other endogenous resources with scientific-technical analysis of the bioactive potential of natural resources, through biocultural processes based on innovative tools of social participation. In addition, throughout this year, the Biodiversity Foundation will publish a new call framed in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) to promote bioeconomy projects, focused on forest management and restoration with an endowment of 77 million euros. It is expected that these grants will be allocated to initiatives that include comprehensive forest bioeconomy actions, which contribute to the conservation and improvement of biodiversity and natural resources, ecosystem functions and their resilience to fires and other impacts of climate change, as well as to the training, job creation and territorial cohesion of the population in rural areas.