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FRUITS PLANTATIONS FOR THE BROW BEAR IN DEGAÑA |
 Where is Degaña?. Distribution map of the brown bear in Asturias and localización of the municipality if Degaña |
18 october 2008 |
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FRUITS PLANTATIONS FOR THE BROW BEAR IN DEGAÑA |
Where is Degaña?. Distribution map of the brown bear in Asturias and localización of the municipality if Degaña |
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The territory has a double situation: From the one side, it is one of the most important sites inside the distribution area of the brow bear in the western core. We can ascertain that these lands, together with the closer territories, have been those which have allowed surviving the bears in the most tragic moments of its survival, when furtive hunting was at ease in the Cantabrian mountain range. Nowadays, Degaña is part of the Natural Reserve of the Fuentes del Narcea y de Ibias (Parque Natural de las Fuentes del Narcea y de Ibias), a natural space, almost unknown, but with an extraordinary biological value. As a consequence thereof, this territory has a special protection. But these lands also face serious conservation problems. The open air mining is one of them. It is so powerful that certain companies obtained that those territories that were susceptible of exploitation through open air mining to extract coal remained excluded from the protected area of the natural reserve. |
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But these have been territories predated by the furtive hunting, as in this
old picture of laces in the 80´s.
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 Or even worst, during some days, the bear trapped in a steel wire traveled across some mountainsides of the protected territory looking for refuge in its pitiful stroll through the León mountains. |
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COLABORATION AGREEMENT Fapas and Degaña Town Hall have reached an agreement, by virtue of which both institutions are going to work both entities are going to work jointly and in a coordinated form to preserve the natural values of the territory and specially of the Brown bear.
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PLANTATIONS OF RUITS FOR THE BROWN BEAR FAPAS most important work that it is going to be developed in the Municipality of Degaña, is linked to the campaign of Fruits For The Brown Bear. For these purposes, on a first stage 5,000 plants of wild cherry tree and chestnut tree will be intended for its plantation in the different zones of the Municipality. The goals on a medium term basis are to obtain the recovery of all those plots that are nowadays abandoned. It is about tens of plots that until 30 or 40 years ago were planted with cereals to obtain the flour to bake bread. Now these plots remain unproductive, covered by thicket and occasionally are focus for fires that endanger the conservation of these mountains.
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This week Fapas has began working on the territory, moving all its machinery to turn abandoned, burned and unproductive lands, into plantations of chestnut trees and cherry trees that will provide with food for the bear during decades. The lands are totally covered by unproductive vegetation. First it is necessary to weed them using the chain tractor and the weed machine. The works are not easy and the slopes make necessary to carry out the works with caution. Once the ancient plots are cleaned, the small tractor makes the holes where later on the plants will be placed. Making this from plot to plot and from town to town. What is true is that the campaign, announced by the Degaña Town Council, has had such a response that in this moment so many owners have requested to reforest their plots, that the initial possibilities of the project have been surpassed. It is possible that as of today´s date we might have available plots enough to plant fifteen or twenty thousand trees.
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