02 octubre 2020

On September 28, 29 and 30, the 4th annual Open2Preserve meeting took place. Due to the current situation, the meeting was in a mixed format, with half of the partners connected online and the other half in person in Catalonia, more specifically in Montseny, the site of one of the eight pilot experiences of the project. A two-day visit to the Pyrenees-Orientales region, in the south of France, was also planned, but the situation of the pandemic had to cancel this part of the meeting in the absence of a few days. It is hoped to jointly visit this region in Spring if circumstances allow.

The meeting was a perfect occasion to re-share the work done since the last meeting in northern Portugal. The different partners have been working in parallel on two tasks: pilot experiences and regional valuation studies. In the first case, it is worth highlighting the great variety of ecosystems that are being managed by burning combined with directed grazing, while in the second case, the different socio-economic contexts of each region have meant that each region is opting for very different valorization strategies , such as improving the quality of livestock products, the implementation of brands or tourism on farms.

The meeting, as every year, was attended by external experts to the project who contribute their point of view and experts in the field of burning, landscape management and livestock. This year we had the pleasure of listening to the talks by Etel Arilla (GRAF Inspector) who spoke about the implementation of burns in Catalonia, Marc Taüll (CTFC researcher) who presented herbivorism as a territorial management tool and with Anna Sanitjas (Girona Provincial Council) ) who gave his talk on management applied to mountain pastures in Montseny.

Finally, the meeting ended on the 30th with a visit to the Montseny pilot experience, where the director of the Natural Park, the shepherd and the rancher told us about the management carried out on the plot.