Progress Report1 Covering the Project Activities from 01/09/20162 to 31/12/2017
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LIFE Project Number LIFE15NAT/ES/805 Progress Report1 Covering the project activities from 01/09/20162 to 31/12/2017 Reporting Date3 31/12/2017 LIFEPROJECT NAME or Acronym LIFE OREKA MENDIAN Conservation and management of Basque mountain grasslands Data Project Project location: SPAIN: Euskadi FRANCE: Pyrénées-Atlantiques Project start date: 01/09/2016 Project end date: 01/11/2021 Total budget: 3,743,705 € EU contribution: 2,246,223 € (%) of eligible costs: 60 % Data Beneficiary Name Beneficiary: Fundación HAZI Fundazioa Contact person: Mr Mikel de Francisco Postal address: Granja Modelo s/n 01192 Arkaute SPAIN Telephone: +34 651 705 263 E-mail: [email protected] Project Website: www.lifeorekamendian.eu 1 Progress Report without any payment request (for Progress Reports with payment request, use the Midterm Report template) 2Project start date in the case of the first Progress Report, otherwise date since the last reporting period 3 Include the reporting date as foreseen in part C2 of Annex II of the Grant Agreement REQUIRED STRUCTURE: 1. Table of contents 1.Table of contents 2. List of key-words and abbreviations 3. Executive summary 4. Administrative part 5. Technical part 5.1. Progress per action 5.2. Envisaged progress until next report 5.3. Impact 5.4. Outside LIFE 6. Financial part 6.1 Costs incurred 6.2. Budgeted person-days by group of actions 7. English summary of the annexes 2. List of key-words and abbreviations CENA: Conservatoire d’espaces naturels d’Aquitaine (Aquitaine Natural Spaces Conservatory) CBNPMP: Conservatorio Botánico Nacional de los Pirineos y Mediodía Pirineos (National Botanical Conservatory of the Pyrenees and Midi Pyrenees) DOCOB: Document d’objectif Natura 2000 (Natura 2000 objective paper) DDFF: Diputaciones Forales (Regional Councils) DDTM: Direction départementale des territoires et de la mer (Department direction of territories and the sea) DREAL: Directions régionale de l'environnement, de l'aménagement et du logement (Regional direction of the environment, planning and housing) DFA: Diputación Foral de Alava (Regional Council of Alava) DFB: Diputación Foral de Bizkaia (Regional Council of Biscay) DPT: Department FDFG: Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa (Regional Council of Gipuzkoa) EC: Etat de conservation (State of conservation) EHLG: Euskal Herriko Laborantza Ganbara ENP: natural protected space Euskadi: Spanish Basque Country IC: Intérêt communautaire (Community interest) Iparralde: French Basque Country JJAA: Juntas administrativas (Administrative Boards) MAEC: Mesures agro-environnementales et climatiques (Agro-environmental and climatic measures) PCHP: Plan de Conservación de Hábitats Pascícolas (Pasture Habitat Conservation Plan) PDR: Plan de Desarrollo Rural (Rural Development Plan) SIGPASTOS: Sistema de clasificación de datos georreferenciados para la gestión en los pastos de montaña (System to classify geo-referenced data to manage mountain pastures) Progress report LIFE 2 TESSA: Toolkit for ecosystem service site – based assessment TTHH: Territorios Históricos (Historical Territories) ZEC: Zonas Especiales de Conservación (Special Conservation Zones) ZSC: Zone spéciale de conservation (Special Conservation Zone) 3. Executive summary 3.1. General progress Over these first 16 months, the Project has made huge progress in preparatory actions (A) and in communication actions (E). However, conservation actions (C) and monitoring actions (D) are beginning, since they largely depend on prior execution of the aforementioned actions. Preparatory Actions: Preparation of Shared Bases to integrate data and establish criteria to conserve pasture habitats in a coordinated fashion is at a very advanced stage. Holding Coordination Groups and workshops where managers, technicians and researchers meet together proved to be a highly suitable formula to reach consensus and make progress toward these objectives. Furthermore, great effort is being invested in designing and feeding a database (called SIGPASTOS) to integrate all the available information to plan management of mountain pastures. The gaps and widely-dispersed sources to obtain said data mean that this effort is proving more difficult than expected. To access/collect certain data, it was necessary to wait for results from workshops and surveys, which, along with the difficulty in integrating the particularities of each space, has delayed the forecasted deadlines for this action. Notwithstanding, the result is a quality tool that can be highly useful for management over upcoming years, beyond drawing up the PCHPs included in this project, for which it was designed. Once again, cooperation shall be necessary so that this database continues to be fed in the future, and the LIFE framework is suitable to activate this type of commitment. The proposal of a unified tool means that mountain pasture conservation can be approached homogeneously within the scope of the study as a whole, and it has also highlighted the particularities of each ZEC and underlined possible improvements to management within the different scopes of the project. In relation to the aforementioned points, preparation of the Plan de Conservación de Hábitats Pascícolas (PCHP) in each ZEC is delayed, and they are expected to be finished mid-2018. However, in addition to having collected all the database information and integrated it into SIGPASTOS, a diagnosis is already available of aspects such as vegetation trends, potential and actual use of pastures, definition of management units, balance between supply and demand in pasture production, etc. Based on this data, the objectives, particular criteria and conservation actions for each ZEC will be defined over the upcoming months. Lastly, the preparatory action related to establishing a production monitoring network is making adequate progress, both in the south of the Basque Country and in Iparralde, with coordination between both territories. Only in the Alava zone was there a delay in cage placement, which will be activated next spring. Progress report LIFE 3 Specific conservation actions A strategy was applied to the conservation actions, whose purpose is to mitigate the effect of the aforementioned delays in planning: it consists of partially beginning execution of urgent actions without waiting to finish preparation/approval of the PCHP. This was possible in cases where sufficient prior information was available on the actions to be executed (e.g., because they were planned in ZEC planning documents, or in prior pasture plans) and, in any event, when the condition was met that planning under development within the preparatory actions was not contradicted. Out of the possible lines of action, priority was placed on the most urgent actions per the judgement of responsible partners, and those most requested in workshops with local players. Monitoring Monitoring of evaluation of the project's repercussions has barely begun, although the protocols to start it up in 2018 are being specified: in Iparralde, this type of monitoring is more advanced, given that it does not depend so much on actions executed within the project; rather, practises carried out per Natura2000 contracts (FEADER) are assessed. Within this section as well, the trend analysis was remarkably developed (D6), based on changes in vegetation and livestock practises in different regions. Communication The project's Communication Plan was carried out, and its webpage was also published. Main communication milestones were met. However, the huge effort in presenting the project to local players is of note, on one hand, so as to foment their participation and involvement in the project, and on the other, to obtain information on territory use (through surveys), necessary to draw up the PCHP. In this regard, meetings were held with ENP Sponsors, with entities who own the public forests, and with individual owners, with the livestock industry and its associations, etc. This sort of meeting requires a huge effort in gathering people together and in organisation, yet it is considered essential for the project to properly take its course. After the first round from April until June while drawing up the PCHP diagnosis, another meeting with interested parties is planned during the first months of 2018, so as to share its results and define, along with said parties, the conservation actions to be carried out at each location. On the other hand, expert researchers collaborated at all times (either by expressly calling them to the coordination groups or by telephone/email contact) to help define the most suitable practises to conserve the habitats and the Technical Bases for preparatory actions. Coordination The expectations set forth in the candidacy were met, creating different committees and establishing the administrative tools necessary for all partners to properly meet the LIFE project's requirements in this regard. 3.2. Assessment as to whether the project objectives and work plan are still viable Both the objectives and the work plan included in the candidacy are still considered viable. Progress report LIFE 4 3.3. Identified deviations, problems and corrective actions taken in the period Problems and delays in the preparatory actions may influence execution of conservation actions, since, in principle, it was expected for them to be included in the PCHP prior to execution. As mentioned earlier, to correct this deviation, progress has been made with part of the actions. The slight deviations in deadlines for each action are presented in section 5.2 of this document.