Apologies to regular readers. I’ve been neglecting this blog recently as I’ve been working feverously on the wildworld project. Here are a few news items I’ve missed:

Project to save the capercaillie in Asturias and Cantabria (RTVE) Only 500 birds are left in the entire Cantabrian mountains (above photo)

80 loggerhead turtles released in Cabo de Gata A total of 376 are to be set free

Lammergeyer return to the Picos de Europa Historic release of two females in the Picos de Europa, the first for 70 years. See also Lisa’s description of the release here.

Female lynx found dead in Sierra Morena

Places in Andalucia

• The Arenas de Rey earthquake
• Arab baths in Jaén
• A beautiful beach in Cabo de Gata
• The gold mines of Rodalquilar
• La Cueva de los Murciélagos – The Bat Cave
• El Cortijo del fraile
• The Torcal de Antequera

Places in Aragon

• Daroca
• Mallos de Riglos
• Loarre castle
• Aneto

Places in Asturias

• Unspoilt fishing village in Asturias
• Blowholes of Asturias
• Tejeda del Sueve

Places in Castilla y León

• Villarcayo de Merindad de Castilla la Vieja
• The bear’s paw in Navacepeda de Tormes
• Lubián wolf trap
• Arribes del Duero
• Las Médulas
• Calatanazor juniper forest

Places in Castilla-La Mancha

• Site of the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa
• Almagro Corral de Comedias theatre
• The windmills of Consuegra
• Castle-hermitage of la Virgen del Castillo
• Bronze Age site of La Encantada
• Marqués de Santa Cruz palace

Places in Catalonia

• Sant Martí d’Empúries – the most beautiful village in the Costa Brava?
• Estany Gento
• Monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes
• Castellfollit de la Roca
• Ullastret

Places in Galicia

• Vilán lighthouse
• La Playa de los Ingleses

Places in Murcia

• Loarre castle

Places in The Basque Country

• Aitxuri, the most prominent in the Basque Country
• Ea – The shortest place name in the world
• Las Salinas de Añana
• La Torca del Carlista

• The Lubian wolf trap
• Mallos de Riglos
• El Cortijo del fraile

The iberianatureforum has become the place to identify and learn about the reptiles and amphibians of Spain. Recently we’ve had discussions on sharped ribbed newts, viperine snakes, smooth snakes, horseshoe whipsnakes, tree frogs and juvenile ocellated lizards. More here

There’s also a rather nice seletion of images of reptiles and amphibians uploaded by our members.

Visit britainnnature

Google Directory

The new iberianature Barcelona blog is starting to take shape…More on our walking tours shortly.
Barcelona blog

Anna Gallés is a natural history painter with a lovely eye for detail Visit Anna’s blog and see more of her work

Iberianature has been nominated for the Spanish WWF Panda Awards. If you like iberianature please vote for us here.

Eventually these channels will probably become the main entrance into iberianature along with news feeds.

I’m pleased announce that Simon Rice, another iberianatureforum stalwart has just begun his own blog on iberianature. Simon is an excellent writer with an eye for the quirkier side of things, and is, like myself, a geographer who enjoys looking for patterns in landscapes, and interplay between geography, history and nature. He divides his time between Tarragona city and Fígols de Tremps, a hamlet in the Leridan Pyrenees so he’ll be concentrating on southern and western Catalonia. Here’s an extract from his first post, illustrated with the photo above.

What is it that makes a landscape so stunning? Certainly not sheer size as in this case the valley is dwarfed by the higher ranges just to the north and the two local big sierras, Boumort and Montsec. Walking the mile or so (a couple of kilometres at most) of farm track towards the Obac de Serradell, the last flat, cultivated space at the head of the valley, it struck me that here quite the opposite was the case; even though the landscape is big, even by Spanish standards, it is small enough to be constantly changing as I walked up the valley, with new vistas and facets emerging with every turn. Plus there is a lovely juxtaposition between the bare cliffs and the wooded slopes that reach up to them from the valley floor. Meanwhile, the domesticity of the immediate surroundings, with their rolling meadows and quaint bordes, or field barns, contrasted with the primordial appearance of the dense forest and the heavily eroded slopes.

Read Simon’s blog

I’m pleased to announce that iberianatureforum stalwart Lucy Brzoska has started her own blog on iberianature called straightforwardly enough, Lucy’s Blog. Lucy will probably concentrate on Barcelona and environs with forays into the Catalan Pyrenees and her beloved Leonese mountains.

Check out this frankly excellent post by Lucy, on Barcelona’s best kept secret, the heronry, perched in the trees above the city’s zoo. Read Citadel of herons

In the near future Simon Rice will be joining in with his own blog from the deepest hinterlands of Catalonia.

One of Spain’s last untouched landscapes, the Sierra de Gata in north-western Extremadura, may shortly be inundated with up to 19 wind farms. The Times
And this piece by Steve West on his very nicely designed Birding in Spain site. “Should the inhabitants of Terra Alta, Montsià and Matarranya, with the great natural and scenic wealth of Els Ports, the serres of Pàndols and Cavalls, the wonderful via verda, the rivers Matarranya, Estrets, Algars (the cleanest in the Mediterranean basin)…should they let it all go and allow the hills to be plastered with wind turbines? ” Birding and sustainable tourism versus windfarms
This topic is also currently being hotly debated on the forum here. Renewable Energy, but at any price?

Greater Flamingo first colonised Fuente de Piedra back in 1963 and has since made the area a star attraction for many visitors. With a maximum count of some 34,000 birds being present in the past then it is not surprising why many people want to make this area a ‘must see’ site during their stay in Andalusia….

It is sad to report that the numbers of Flamingos present at Fuente de Piedra are now down to 4 individuals and that non-breeding has been drastically affected by abuses of self interest and the lack of managed water resources…. Read the full post on the forum

I’m pleased to announce the first iberianatureforum sponsored wildlife project. The plan is to support the conservation of the endangered Southern Midwife toad (Alytes dickhilleni – above photo from sierradebaza.org.) The idea has arisen from a visit members of the forum made last month to the Zoo Botanico in Jerez de la Frontera, the best in Spain in terms of conservation of local species, and has been organised by joint forum-owner Clive whom I quote here.

• The zoo is in the process or requesting permission to collect from the wild an endangered species of amphibian for captive breeding and release and we (The Forum) can help out with the project.
• Alytes dickhilleni is a species of Midwife toad that only occurs in the Southern part of Spain hence its common name of “Betic / Southern Midwife Toad” after the “Baetic” mountain range in the Andalucía. (In Spanish it’s a Sapo partero bético).
• The project needs some large glass terrariums (5) in order to house and breed the toads that cost (the terrariums) about 150 Euros each. In return for our help the Iberianature Forum will be named as sponsors and our collaboration will be mentioned in all the results returned from the project. (We will be famous at last!)
• The community of iberianature has come a long way over the last year or so and we have all contributed to an excellent resource about the natural world of Iberia but this, for me at least, is an excellent opportunity for us as a group to help in a practical way some people who are really working hard to protect their environment.

If you like iberianature and you would like to contribute to this project please send me or Clive an email.

See on the forum

• The first iberianature forum sponsored wildlife project
• More on the Southern Midwife Toad (iberianatureforum’s hero of the month)

The Internet platform will be formed by several distinct areas. These include (there are more):

1. Public and private forums and blogs. Some of the forums will be closed to the public as they will deal with sensitive information discussed by experts.
2. The division of Spanish territory into areas each with a threatened species which will function as a flagship species around which to concentrate efforts (conservation, IT, education, business). The first of these flagship species is to be the brown bear.
3. A digital book covering all issues affecting Spanish nature.
4. A single-topic magazine sold in kiosks covering all aspects of each of the flagship species.

Some questions:

1. The project is very ambitious. How to organise so much information and so many people with so many different ends.
2. How to make these admirable digital contents useful for the real projects in villages and the countryside. That is, how to transform information into a real economic asset for the inhabitants of the rural areas, especially those least visited, and to turn their protection into an economic asset, and provide a real alternative to the attraction of mass development (skiing, golf, residential estates for the rich. industrial agriculture) in some areas and to the rapidly dying communities in many, many more. I repeat. We must offer real alternatives. The project must in the end be useful for the inhabitants of these areas and not just for the usual suspects (like me).
3. How to get everybody to work together. As Roberto Hartasánchez notes in this month’s Quercus, it is not only farmers, hunters and who are in conflict, but often pointless infighting between conservation groups themselves. As a Spanish friend recently commentated, the Reinos de Taifa come to mind.

A few ideas off the top of my head:

1. Rural tourism was seen several years ago as the panacea to all ills but in its present model of just offering accommodation it has reached a saturation point in many areas, with properties being full for a few key dates of the year while the rest of the year owners are faced with very low occupancy levels. Rural tourism must be promoted – as it often is – with additional activities or as part of a route if it is offer more. I’m stating the obvious I know.
2. Conversion of activities – as an example I heard yesterday in Grazalema- with the end of EU grants a goat farmer is going to convert to horse riding activities. But the land will no longer be grazed which will affect the landscape and for example the orchid biodiversity.
3. Setting up/strengthening national commercialisation channels for agro products to bring the produce to the cities. Although the production costs will remain the same, distribution costs could be reduced. Perhaps a national brand “Producción de Biodiversidad” Agreements with large supermarket chains in return for improving their corporate image. Health food shops are not enough to bring about a revolution.
4. Broadband

More on this soon.

The Castilla and León law courts have vetoed the project put forward by Tres Provincias S.A. for a ski resort in the San Glorio region of the Cantabrian mountains in the north of Spain, citing climate change as the main reason for its very doubtful economic viability. This makes it the first plan to have been denied on the grounds of climate change. The judgement points out that when, in 2006, the regional government of Castilla and León modified the laws protecting the Natural Park of Fuentes Carrionas and Fuente Cobre-Montaña Palentina (land included in much of the project) to enable the building of a ski resort, no scientific study was included to take into account the effects of climate change.

The threats to the environment and the future of the Cantabrian brown bear made by the project have led to huge opposition from conservationists, who have provided many environmental impact reports. The court also recognises that this project would be incompatible with the survival of many species of flora and fauna of the area, including the bears whose Eastern population would be severely affected.

News from El País

Read all about the subject on Iberianature forum

natura ibérica

And also a rural tourism section in Spanish should you be interested

A corrala (not corral!) is a traditional construction unique to the the Sierra de la Culebra. The heather thatch edging with an open centre protected sheep against both the rain and the wolf, and should the latter have managed to jump in, it would never have got out.

Most corralas are falling into disuse. A few have been restored as folk monuments. These days, shepherds lock up their flocks in warehouses.

Below an image from the gallery: the Hayados de Tejera Negra by Dave who writes:

“The beech trees of Tejera Negra were planted in remote times, when the climate was colder and more humid than it is now.” Read