The National Strategy for Sport and Sustainable Development seeks to achieve adequate management and planning of sports activities that take place in the natural environment.

The National Strategy for Sport and Sustainable Development seeks to achieve adequate management and planning of sports activities that take place in the natural environment.

The aforementioned strategy, promoted by Green Cross Spain and the Biodiversity Foundation, with the collaboration of the Higher Sports Council and the Spanish Olympic Committee, has been continued with the launch of the Green Card for Spanish Sport and the design of a Sports Agenda 21.

Within this framework, this project seeks to carry out an analysis of the sports practices that take place in the surroundings of the Network of National Parks and a comparison of these with other international natural spaces. In this way, it will be possible to determine the conditions in which the different sports practices must be developed so that they are compatible with environmental, social and economic management in National Parks and, by extension, in other Natural Parks, and so that they contribute, at the same time, to sustainable development in rural areas.

This analysis has resulted in the participatory development of a guide of good practices for managers, sports federations, companies and sports clubs, which operate in protected or sensitive areas. Due to their natural and conservation characteristics, they not only deserve special attention in terms of compatible sports uses, but these uses represent, on the one hand, an opportunity for sustainable development in rural areas and, on the other, an opportunity to value biodiversity as an economic resource in sports practices.

Consult the “Guidance for the integration of good environmental practices in sports developed in natural spaces”.