In the Els Ports Natural Park, the action ‘Building a forest landscape resilient to climate change’ is being carried out. This action seeks to implement coordinated forest planning between public and private owners and to carry out demonstrative forestry interventions.
To date, an informative and participatory process has been carried out with owners that has involved a large group of forest owners. A total of eight estates, 15% of the park’s total area, joined the project, including both pilot estates, which receive direct funding from the LIFE project (two estates, some 1,090 hectares), and ‘replica’ estates, with external funding (six estates, some 4,382 hectares).
Forest Management Tools (FMT) have been developed for each estate. The tools have been drawn up and coordinated, and management models have been applied focused on adapting forests to climate change and improving biodiversity. Currently, four of the eight estates have approved FMTs, the rest are in the approval phase. This year, external assistance will be provided to support the owners in the process of processing the IOFs and to create a working group to promote the actions contained in the planning tools in the short and medium term.
Interventions covering some 15 hectares in the two pilot estates have been selected and carried out to exemplify the work planned in the IOFs. The actions, designed according to the conservation forestry model of ecological processes, have consisted of silvicultural treatments to improve habitats aimed at promoting maturity in forests of high ecological value and the improvement and recovery of open spaces.
