Javier Cachón, Director General of Biodiversity and Environmental Quality of the Ministry for Ecological Transition (MITECO) has presented, at the MITECO stand at the National Congress of the Environment (CONAMA 2018), the results of the LIFE+ Desmania project.

The Director General of Biodiversity and Environmental Quality of the Ministry for Ecological Transition (MITECO), Javier Cachón, has presented, at the MITECO stand at the National Congress of the Environment (CONAMA 2018), the results of the LIFE+ Desmania project. The Biodiversity Foundation has coordinated, between 2012 and 2018, this project, which has had as partners the autonomous communities of Extremadura and Castilla y León, the Natural Heritage Foundation, CESEFOR, SOMACYL and Tragsatec. It has also had the support of the Miño-Sil, Tagus and Duero Hydrographic Confederations, research centres and fishermen’s associations.

The initiative was launched six years ago, aware of the regression of the Iberian desman (Galemys pyrenaicus), with the aim of acting in an urgent and coordinated way for the conservation of this small mammal. The LIFE+ Desmania project has been an important opportunity to carry out the vast majority of the actions contemplated in the National Strategy for the Conservation of the species. Action has been taken in 33 Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) of the Natura 2000 Network, distributed between the provinces of León, Palencia, Zamora, Ávila, Salamanca and Cáceres.

Thanks to the initiative, we know this small mammal much better in these areas than we did 6 years ago. And this has been possible thanks to the intensity of the sampling of the species: more than 9,000 km of river have been analysed and more than 1,000 sections have been sampled. 1,200 samples have also been genetically analyzed. In addition, an important population of Iberian desman has been found in the province of Ávila, which was unknown to date.

The sampling has served to identify its main obstacles and threats and to focus the conservation actions of the project. In this way, a significant number of physical barriers that could prevent the free transit of the desman have been eliminated: 12 demolitions of dams, dams or slabs; 4 restorations of waste dumps; silvicultural work and reforestation along more than 80 km of rivers, removal of waste of various kinds in 187 km of riverbed, 5 km of felling and treatment in alder groves with Phytophthora alni.

An important effort has also been made to control the populations of an invasive species as harmful to the species as the American mink (Neovison vison), whose predation is reducing desman populations. Within the framework of the project, 55,000 trapping days have been carried out, 28 training days and more than 450 agents have been trained, a fundamental implication for the sustainability of the action in the future.

The Iberian desman is one of the commonly called “unknown or forgotten species”. The LIFE+ Desmania project has meant a substantial leap in the knowledge of the species by the local population and especially for the actors with the greatest presence in the rivers, mainly fishermen and irrigators, through the awareness-raising and dissemination actions and materials that have been carried out on the ground.

The initiative has served to confirm that the presence of the species is associated with the best preserved riverbeds and has confirmed its important role as a bioindicator of the good health of rivers, which makes it very vulnerable to changes induced by some human activities, including the effects of climate change.

Do you want to know about the LIFE+ Desmania project? On its website you can consult the background, objectives and actions developed within the framework of the same.