The Vice-President and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, today inaugurated the meeting “Forest Restoration: a path to recovery and well-being”, as part of the #Biodirectos cycle, organised by the Biodiversity Foundation and held to commemorate the International Day of Forests, which took place last Sunday. March 21. This year, the initiative has focused on revitalising the health of forests, something that is to our own benefit, as it contributes to creating jobs, mitigating climate change and safeguarding biodiversity.
At the meeting, Vice-President Teresa Ribera stressed that forests are “the largest managed carbon sink we know, the thermostat of our climate and also a source of employment generation on a global scale”.
Forest systems are reserves of biodiversity, sources of health and engines of rural development, which is why Ribera has expressed the Government’s commitment to “consolidate prevention measures against forest fires and a New National Forest Strategy”.
“The restoration and sustainable management of these ecosystems addresses the crisis of climate change and biodiversity, aspects that we refer to when we talk about regeneration,” he added. “Our inaction would have a price that we cannot afford in any case. Therefore, we must move forward successfully in this transformative challenge that lies ahead,” he concluded.
HALTING ECOSYSTEM DEGRADATION
This #Biodirectos was also attended by Jorge Marquínez, Director General of Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO); Marc Palahí, director of the European Forest Institute; Alfonso San Miguel, PhD in Forestry Engineering and professor at the Polytechnic University of Madrid; Ana Belén Noriega, Secretary General of PEFC Spain; and Silvia Martínez, technical director of FSC Spain.
During the event, it was pointed out that this year marks the beginning of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. It is aligned with the European Union Biodiversity Strategy’s 2030 target of planting 3 billion trees. In this way, the recovery of forests as a fundamental element of the landscape will be promoted, and the ecological resilience and development of the areas that host them will be increased.
The Director General of Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification has expressed that “we intend to develop a very important action in the administration and improvement of our forests, which in this decade will have a great capacity to drag on society and from the Government we are going to join with energy”. He also stressed that “we need science to guide restoration”.
For his part, Marc Palahí addressed the role of forests in the creation of a new economic paradigm, the circular bioeconomy, which values biodiversity and biological systems. “This paradigm shift requires breaking with the great dichotomies that have characterised the industrial era: between ecology and economy, between the urban and rural environment and between technology and nature”, he stressed.
Alfonso San Miguel insisted on the benefits for society of forests that are not forests, “whose greatest threat is the disappearance of the management that created them, which leads to more homogeneous landscapes and with a greater risk of fires”. Therefore, “we must bet on extensive livestock farming, forestry and a revitalization of the rural environment that allows there to continue to be human presence in our forests,” he added.
Ana Belén Noriega highlighted the benefits of forests in a more resilient society, stressing that “it is important to open the forest to society, focusing on people, and trace each product that comes out of the forest through a forest chain of custody”.
Finally, Silvia Martín stressed that adaptive forest management can make these ecosystems less vulnerable and pointed out that “we have to value ecosystem services through the forest management that is carried out in them”.
