The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Ana Leiva, together with the president of EUROPARC-Spain, Hermelindo Castro, and the director of the Autonomous National Parks Agency, Olga Baniandrés, present the celebration of the European Parks Day, which will take place today, from 6 p.m., at the Casa Encendida in Madrid (Ronda de Valencia, 2).

The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Ana Leiva, together with the president of EUROPARC-Spain, Hermelindo Castro, and the director of the Autonomous National Parks Agency, Olga Baniandrés, present the celebration of the European Parks Day, which will take place today, from 6 p.m., at the Casa Encendida in Madrid (Ronda de Valencia, 2).

European Parks Day has been commemorated every May 24, since 1999, at the request of the EUROPARC Federation, which chose that date to remember the declaration of the first national parks, in Sweden, in 1909.

As a pan-European organisation that brings together institutions dedicated to nature conservation from 39 countries, EUROPARC encourages activities to be proposed in 2010, the International Year of Biodiversity, to raise awareness of the relevance of protected areas for society, under a central theme: “Biodiversity and people in protected natural areas”.

Precisely, the conservation of natural heritage and biodiversity is one of the main objectives of action of the Biodiversity Foundation. And this year is the right time to continue contributing to the preservation of protected spaces and species and to the socio-economic development of these areas.

In this sense, the Biodiversity Foundation supports specific research, conservation, training and awareness-raising initiatives, all of them with a markedly innovative, applied and demonstrative character. It also contributes to promoting network programs, which allow the sharing of successful experiences and good conservation practices in Biosphere Reserves, National Parks and other protected areas, both in the terrestrial and marine environments.

Hence today’s joint celebration, which will bring together experts such as the political scientist Ignacio Santos Molina, from the University Institute of Development and Cooperation of the Complutense University of Madrid; the researcher in agriculture and biodiversity Krystyna Swiderska, from the International Institute for Environment and Development in the United Kingdom, and the national coordinator of the International Union for Conservation of Nature for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Antoine Eyebe.