The Minister of the Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs, Elena Espinosa, presided today in Galicia over the signing of collaboration agreements between the Biodiversity Foundation and six Galician entities that will develop projects to promote employment and good environmental practices in that Autonomous Community, within the framework of the Empleaverde Program.

The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, a public foundation of the Government of Spain, under the Ministry of the Environment, and Rural and Marine Affairs, Ana Leiva, as well as representatives of the signatory organizations, participated in this event: the mayor of the Council of Entrimo, Ramón Alonso; the rector of the University of Santiago de Compostela, Senén Barro; the general secretary of Agrarian Unions-UPA, Roberto García; the president of the EuroEume Association, José Castro; the dean president of the Official College of Architects of Galicia, Celestino García, and the president of the Paideia Galiza Foundation, Rosalía Mera.

The Biodiversity Foundation, as the managing body of the European Social Fund (ESF), allocates 1,936,622 euros to promote job creation and the improvement of the environment in Galicia. This investment will be used to develop projects aimed at creating employment, increasing the qualification of workers, modernising companies for sustainable development and adapting them to environmental regulations.

Approved within the framework of the Empleaverde Programme, actions will be carried out in Galicia in the agricultural, forestry, energy, fishing, construction, food, environmental management and sustainable tourism sectors.

Agriculture, fisheries and sustainability

The University of Santiago de Compostela will develop a project called “Activation of the resources of the Terras do Miño Biosphere Reserve, for the creation of employment and quality of life. Guitiriz: the sense of waters”. It is aimed at workers in rural Galician municipalities, located in the Biosphere Reserve and affected by a process of depopulation, with an ageing population and emigration of young people to urban environments.

The Council of Entrimo, for its part, will carry out an initiative mainly aimed at forestry and agricultural workers, managers of SMEs and micro-SMEs and self-employed workers. The aim is to revitalise the enclave of the Baixa Limia-Serra do Xurés Protected Natural Area – Xurés World Biosphere Reserve, based on the sustainable economic development of its endogenous resources, linked to the territory.

Other entities such as the Association to Promote the Rational Use of Forest Products and Services (FSC-Spain), the Agri-Food Federation of UGT and the Coordinator of Farmers’ and Ranchers’ Organizations (COAG – Rural Initiative) will carry out projects that will contribute to sustainable practices in their sectors and to the conservation of biodiversity in several Autonomous Communities. among them, Galicia.

Imagination at the service of development

The Euroeume Association will launch a project aimed mainly at workers who share a similar environmental problem, such as those in the iron and steel industry and in the construction or hospitality industry. The general objective of the project is to contribute to sustainable development, through the realization of environmental diagnoses and training courses.

“Green clover” is the name of Paideia Galiza’s initiative, which includes an environmental training plan for women workers in tourism services and products companies, which will be permanently integrated into the training plan promoted by the Tourism Sustainability Plan that covers several municipalities in the region. These training actions will allow workers to have alternative ways of professional development.

Along the same lines, Unión Agrarias-UPA proposes a project also aimed at women workers in rural areas, which aims to consolidate the growing role of rural women in new sources of employment related to the environment, in the multifunctional role of agriculture, forests and associative networks. Economic activities such as rural ecotourism, the production, transformation and preparation of organic food, environmental education in protected areas, the implementation of renewable energies, waste management and sustainable forest management will be promoted.

In addition, the Spanish Railways Foundation, EUROPARC Spain, the Union of Professionals and Self-Employed Workers (UPTA) and the Technical Association for Waste Management, Urban Cleaning and the Environment (ATEGRUS) are focusing their actions on training in sustainable management in several regions of Spain, including Galicia.

For a new energy model

The Official College of Architects of Galicia proposes to carry out the project “Eco-innovation and sustainability in the construction of housing”, among workers in the building sector: architecture professionals, quantity surveyors and technical architects, workers and managers of construction companies, real estate developers and technical architectural services. The aim is to reach all those key agents in the sector to achieve sustainability in construction.

Finally, the National Federation of Electrical Installations and Telecommunications Entrepreneurs of Spain and the Conde Valle de Salazar Foundation will also launch projects that pursue energy saving and efficiency in Galicia.