The Aínsa Town Council invests 32,000 euros to continue with the conservation of its Natura 2000 Network.
The grant is allowing the signaling of ZEC and ZEPA areas, the creation of an information point and the recovery of habitats in the municipality.
With this aid, some of the measures proposed by the consistory, in collaboration with the Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture, are being carried out. These actions consist of the creation of an autonomous information point to raise awareness and communicate the existence of the Natura 2000 Network in the Municipality; the signaling of the Special Areas of Conservation ZEC (Ara River, Sierra de Arro, North Guara and Sierra and Canyons of Guara) and Special Protection Area for Birds ZEPAS (Sierra and Canyons of Guara); as well as the recovery of the wetland in the biological corridor of the Ara River in two hectares. Aínsa-Sobrarbe has five Natura 2000 Network areas that occupy 24% of the municipality, with landscapes intervened by human hands for hundreds of years, where a rich biodiversity is present, the result of cultural and historical interaction between man and nature. “It is for this reason that the municipality promotes the conservation of the environment to be accompanied by benefits for citizens and the rural economy,” said Mayor Enrique Pueyo. The project is part of the political action of the municipality of Aínsa-Sobrarbe in environmental matters, related to the implementation of the Basic Management and Conservation Plans of the Protected Areas of the Natura 2000 Network. At the same time, the actions are integrated into the Land Stewardship agreement that the municipality has maintained with the FCQ since 2016. “Far from being an obstacle to socioeconomic development, the Natura 2000 Network has to be an opportunity for the development of traditional productive, recreational and tourist activities,” they point out from the FCQ. “In addition, it is a source of vital services such as carbon storage, maintenance of water quality or protection against floods and droughts. But it is of little use to have a Natura 2000 Network if its neighbors and owners do not know about it, since it is impossible to conserve that which is unknown”. In 2021, the town council of Aínsa-Sobrarbe drafted, after carrying out workshops with local stakeholders, a document with its results, approved in plenary session and which came to be called ‘Action Plan for the Management of the Natura 2000 Network in the Municipality’, with 20 measures and 31 actions. It was also during 2021 when the City Council and the Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture (FCQ) received the Aragon Environment Award for the trajectory and consolidation of the Land Stewardship agreement, which has been maintained since 2016 by both entities and in which different actions have been developed in the Natura 2000 Network. Subsequently, in 2023, the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces granted another award for good local practices for biodiversity to the city council and thanks to which several awareness-raising actions could be carried out.
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