The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, a public foundation of the Government of Spain, under the Ministry of the Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs, Ana Leiva, and the president of the Island Council of Menorca, Marc Pons, have signed a collaboration agreement today in Menorca to promote employment and good environmental practices in the Menorca Biosphere Reserve.

The Biodiversity Foundation is the managing body of the European Social Fund (F.S.E.) and in 2008 it allocated 14,870,837.51 euros to finance 32 projects aimed at improving employment and the environment, through the Empleaverde Programme. One of these initiatives is the one that will be developed in the Menorca Biosphere Reserve with an amount of 404,434.16 euros.

Within the framework of this programme, the Foundation manages the funds allocated to it by the Operational Programme for Adaptability and Employment of the European Social Fund (F.S.E.) for the period 2007-2013.

The empleaverde programme has set goals for the period 2007-2013 to support more than 50,000 people and promote the creation of 1,000 companies in the environmental sector. To this end, it has a total allocation for the years 2007-2013 of 44.1 million euros, of which the European Social Fund co-finances 80% or 50%, depending on the regions in which they are developed.

The objectives of the Empleaverde Programme are: to promote and improve employment; increase the skills and qualifications of workers; to promote the creation and modernization of companies; adapting economic activities to environmental regulations; and promoting sustainability in economic activities.

The project, which will be developed by the Menorca Island Council with the support of the Biodiversity Foundation, aims to contribute to the sustainable development of the Menorca Biosphere Reserve, through the promotion of social and environmental responsibility initiatives in different private economic sectors and to improve the training of different professional groups with an impact on the consumption of natural resources.

This project plans to carry out 200 actions that will have an impact on different sectors such as organic farming, organic livestock, or accessible sports tourism. Thus, these actions will promote the access of the disabled to accessible sports tourism in the Biosphere Reserve and will promote training in energy efficiency or water saving, among other topics.

Likewise, this initiative aims to optimise the use of the natural resources of the Biosphere Reserve to conserve and improve the state of environmental health of the island of Menorca. The resources on which the actions will be carried out are: water, agricultural biodiversity, landscape and territory, and energy.