Conserving nature goes far beyond protected areas

In 1997, landscape ecologists Ferran Rodà (former director of CREAF) and Joan Pino (current director of CREAF) were considering how Catalonia's territory should be managed in order to preserve its biodiversity and ecological functions. At that time, international scientific knowledge was already indicating the need for change, and it was necessary to determine how to apply this locally.

Until then, the management of territory for the purpose of conserving biodiversity had, broadly speaking, focused on designating various types of protected natural spaces. The need to establish a network of corridors to facilitate the movement of wildlife and genetic exchange between these spaces was barely considered. However, in 1983, American ecologist Daniel Janzen stated that no nature reserve is an island, but is subject to interactions with its unprotected surroundings. This approach resonated strongly. It was becoming increasingly evident that the growing influence of the increasingly artificial environment on the ecological state and functioning of protected parks was endangering the conservation of many species and habitats. A relevant example is Collserola Park, where urban pressure and human activity from a population of over 3 million people endangers its natural values every day.

In response to this statement, Rodà and Pino emphasised the need to manage not only the country's protected areas, but also the broader territorial matrix in which they are located. Rodà explained that we needed to move "from sticking stamps (the protected spaces) on an envelope (the territory) to managing the entire envelope".

At the beginning of the 2000s, CREAF began its most intensive period of research into this topic. Rodà and Pino accumulated scientific evidence confirming the importance of this territorial matrix, particularly in Catalonia's most urbanised areas. This paradigm shift also generates benefits for the organisms involved in territorial planning and management. This last point on territorial planning and analysis services was particularly important for the Barcelona Provincial Council. The Council changed its previous territorial approach, which was centred on the so-called “Green Ring” (a network of protected spaces and connecting areas), to also consider non-urbanisable free spaces and to develop plans that incorporated both protected natural spaces and the non-urbanisable territorial matrix.

This new conception resulted in the consolidation of a key tool in 2002: the Information System of the Network of Free Spaces of the Province of Barcelona (SITxell). This system collects a set of territorial indicators on the ecological state and conservation interest of these matrix spaces, among others. Many of these indicators were developed by CREAF, thus transferring the territorial matrix logic to tools suitable for planning and managing these spaces.

New Vision in Management

Once this new vision had been incorporated into territorial planning and management, SITxell backed the designation of four new protected areas at a municipal level in the province of Barcelona, including the Northern Zone of Terrassa and Coll Cardús in Viladecans. It also enabled the protected area of four Natural Parks (Montseny, Montnegre-Corredor, Sierra Litoral and Foix) to increase by between 10% and 50%. Furthermore, SITxell's impact on territorial planning has not been confined to the provincial level but has also informed many municipal policies aimed at improving the conservation of local natural heritage located outside protected areas. Specifically, more than 30% of Barcelona's municipalities have improved their urban plans thanks to SITxell, based on CREAF research, with clear benefits for biodiversity and local population.

According to Pino, “The combination of landscape ecology concepts and the development of SITxell has been a success story in the collaboration between CREAF and the Barcelona Provincial Council.” SITxell has also attracted the attention of municipal officials from other countries. For example, the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council of the Dublin Metropolitan Area (Ireland) commissioned a pilot test based on the Barcelona example. It has also received international recognition in the form of the 2012 United Nations Public Service Award (UNPSA 2012).

According to Carles Castell, the current Head of Monitoring of Environmental Programmes and Actions in the Climate Action and Energy Transition Area at the Barcelona Provincial Council, “The application of SITxell has demonstrated the advantage of investing in high-value territorial information for territorial planning, compared to the previously common practice of fragmented and discontinuous works and studies.”

Throughout the years of intense collaboration between CREAF and the Barcelona Provincial Council, the various administrations have recognised that each habitat, whether urban, rural or forest, contributes to the landscape and provides direct or indirect benefits to the population. This makes it clear that they need to be managed. This a clear example of the impact that CREAF's research can have on our society.