- The General Director of Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification, María Jesús Rodríguez de Sancho, participated in a meeting organized by the Biodiversity Foundation of MITECO and the “la Caixa” Foundation on the role of land stewardship in biodiversity conservation.
- The latest inventory of land stewardship in Spain, prepared by Fundación Biodiversidad, already includes more than 225 land stewardship organizations involved in 3,100 agreements on almost 600,000 hectares.
- The MITECO pursues the incorporation of land stewardship in the Spanish Inventory of Natural Heritage and Biodiversity.
The Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) is committed to public-private collaboration in nature conservation through land stewardship, a tool “with great scope and potential that has shown that the involvement of the social fabric is essential to improve the state of biodiversity and ecosystems”.
This was stated by the general director of Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification, María Jesús Rodríguez de Sancho, who participated in the seminar “Public-private and social collaboration for the conservation and restoration of nature: the role of land stewardship”, organized by the Biodiversity Foundation of MITECO and the “la Caixa” Foundation in the auditorium of the Cap Roig Gardens, in Calella de Palafrugell (Girona).
The meeting was attended by representatives of public administrations, the business sector, international bodies and organizations in the field of conservation and private associations, who highlighted the role of land stewardship as a tool for land management and its value for the private sector.
The seminar was attended by Marc Vilahur, director general of Environmental Policies and Natural Environment of the Generalitat de Catalunya; Ignacio Torres, deputy director of biodiversity and climate change of the Fundación Biodiversidad; Miquel Rafa, leader of the IUCN WCPA Specialist Group on Privately Protected Areas; and Sandra Carrera, director of the Xarxa per a la Conservació de la Natura.
Also participating in another round table were Manel Raventós, president of the association Propietats per a la Conservació de la Natura; Pilar Gegúndez, director of Environment and Resource Sustainability at Holcim Spain; Eduardo de Miguel, director of the Global Nature Foundation; and Marta Escamilla, president of Club EMAS.
María Jesús Rodríguez de Sancho emphasized that this tool, based on volunteering and participation, “is gaining more and more strength thanks to the involvement of social agents and citizens”. The number of owners, landowners and entities that promote agreements and collaboration mechanisms to achieve a positive environmental, cultural, economic and social impact on their territory continues to grow.
The latest inventory of land stewardship in Spain, prepared by the Biodiversity Foundation within the framework of the Platform for Land Stewardship, an initiative it coordinates, already includes more than 225 land stewardship organizations involved in 3,100 agreements on almost 600,000 hectares, which demonstrates the importance of this biodiversity conservation tool. Along these lines, MITECO intends to incorporate land stewardship in the Spanish Inventory of Natural Heritage and Biodiversity.
AN IMPETUS AS A TOOL FOR CONSERVATION
The Strategic Plan for Natural Heritage and Biodiversity promotes the promotion of land stewardship by public administrations. In this line, the aim is not only to include stewardship in the different regulations or the promotion of calls for subsidies, but also to encourage agreements between stewardship entities and owners of private or public properties whose main objective is the conservation of natural heritage and biodiversity.
On the other hand, land stewardship can be an entry point for the financing of nature conservation actions and also has a relevant role in the recovery and restoration of damaged ecosystems as a solution to increase biodiversity, cushion the impact of climate change on species and prevent the consequences of natural disasters.
In order to respond to the new demands identified in the field of land stewardship in Spain, as well as to promote stewardship initiatives and the entities that manage them, the Fundación Biodiversidad del MITECO has developed a strategy for the period 2023-2027which proposes a new working framework.
In the coming years, the aim is to achieve, through 58 actions, a more qualified group of stewards; better access to useful technical resources, the dynamization of tools and communication; the improvement of monitoring and evaluation processes of the results obtained; the promotion of public policies in this area with a special focus on greater legal security and economic incentives linked to the effectiveness of agreements in the conservation and restoration of biodiversity; as well as the promotion of national and international funding opportunities.
COLLABORATION WITH “LA CAIXA” FOUNDATION
MITECO and the “la Caixa” Foundation have promoted a joint line of work on sustainability and ecological transition. These activities include the organization of seminars, workshops and scientific conferences. The seminar “Public-private and social collaboration for the conservation and restoration of nature: the role of land stewardship” is the first of these activities.
