Fragas do Mandeo

 
This morning we came to the River Mandeo because we were meeting some people eager to learn.

The first stop was at the forest house of Muniferral. Some students of the Recreation Instructor Training Course were waiting there, we had already given them a talk at the Youth Center of Betanzos.

The last two classes were spent at the woods, learning how to organize a camp. Being so close to our plots, they took the chance to have direct knowledge of the eucalyptus elimination process with the aim of regenerating the woods and, at the same time, to learn a bit about our native trees.

The second stop was at A Espenuca. Two students of Social Education at the University of A Coruña had to do a paper on land stewardship and volunteering for one of the subjects. Therefore, they wanted to talk with us in order to have firsthand information.

In A Espenuca they could see the great challenge of recovering a deciduous wood. The land stewardship agreements are the tools which allow us to act directly on the environment to restore natural habitats and landscape. But they also involve the use of huge economic and human resources. Environmental volunteering is among the main support elements to move forward these projects. Organizations like ours depend on volunteers even for internal administration, since we lack hired personnel.

As a farewell, we ask boys and girls to be ambassadors of nature in their future professional activities: They really are the new life needed by our woods!

 
Today we have signed an agreement with the Coirós Council to manage for 50 years the conservation of 92,239 m² of municipally-owned forest in the surroundings of A Espenuca hill. Thus, we are going to double the surface in which we are currently doing land stewardship.

One third of this surface is comprised of land plots on the river banks. The large variety of trees growing by the water forms a riparian forest considered a priority habitat. As we move away from the river and up the slope, oaks become prevalent, forming a forest called Galician-Portuguese oakwood. Given the good state of conservation of those deciduous woods, management will focus on surveillance to prevent eucalyptus sprouting spontaneously or other exotic species to grow there.

By contrast, the rest of the surface is covered by eucalyptus woods on the top of the hill, near the chapel. Given their location, the landscape impact is added to a poor ecological state. The aim here is clear: to eradicate the eucalyptus and the Blackwood acacia to reforest with native trees subsequently. As years go by, we will get some deciduous woods not different from those in other plots, improving in this way the landscape environment of the chapel and the viewpoint for the enjoyment of locals and visitors alike. But above all, we will achieve a greater extension of the natural habitats in which many of the endangered species of our area thrive.

Apart from its potential for ecological restoration, these plots currently hold additional values. There are some superb rocky formations in one of them. When eucalyptus are removed, the granitic domes will display all their beauty. In other plot there are remains of buildings that will require an archaeological examination to determine their value and to delimit those areas where especial care is needed when felling and reforesting.

Although the planting will be made by volunteers, we will have to hire professionals for the felling of eucalyptus and for soil preparation. Since we want to guarantee that absolutely all of our supporters’ donations are earmarked for purchasing land with environmental value, we are looking for new funding sources to cover these expenses.

This agreement on land stewardship is the second of its kind signed by a Galician entity with the Administration; thus, Coirós Council showed their willingness to use this new method to preserve the Municipality’s biodiversity. The cooperation between different public entities and stewardship organizations has a great potential to preserve natural areas. For this reason, after these modest beginnings, we hope it will become a recurring practice in the future, as it has happened in other countries for a long time.

Should you like to collaborate in the reforestation of these plots, please contact us and we will let you know in advance. In section Contact you will find the necessary information.

Note: If you get close to A Espenuca hill, you will see at the very top several plots in which eucalyptus were cut down. These plots are not included in the agreement, since they are not municipal assets. Let’s hope someday we can reach an agreement with their owners!

 
At the third running of the Terras do Mandeo Trail, the athletes are going to run for and along the river. Say what? Participants will run along the river and, at the same time, they’ll be raising funds to protect the woods.

The organizers of the race, thanks to the collaboration of Bioetanol Galicia, will donate 50% of the race fees to Fragas do Mandeo, so that it is used for land stewardship in riparian woods and to acquire land plots of environmental value, thus preserving their biodiversity preservation in perpetuity.

The surroundings of the River Mandeo are more and more frequented by sportspeople. Besides being respectful of nature, with initiatives like this one they take a further step in their commitment to this natural area, being rewarded by enjoying an environment which is at once beautiful, healthy and free from traffic, in which to practise their sport.

The business community is also starting to get involved in conservation through corporate social responsibility. A case in point is Bioetanol Galicia, a renewable energy company firmly ensconced in the area, since its production plant was inaugurated in 2001 in Teixeiro (Curtis), near the River Mandeo.

The race will take place on Saturday, June 6. The runners will start at the finishing line in the Do Campo Square of Betanzos at 10:00 a.m. heading towards Os Caneiros, on to and up from Chelo. It will be a hard race, as the 21 km course follows all kinds of paths and trails, with a total ascent of 900 metres; therefore runners will need to be well prepared.

The race organizers are Campo IV Consulting, Betanzos Council and ACEBE CCA, having the support of many collaborating entities. You can consult additional information on the website of Terras do Mandeo Trail.

 
Today, Sunday, the people who came to the beach of Miño for a walk watched with curiosity a large number of busy adolescents.

Scout groups from throughout Galicia, members of the Federación de Scouts-Exploradores de España (ASDE), are holding their yearly concentration in Boebre this weekend. Accepting the invitation of Fragas do Mandeo to do environmental volunteering in this area, they decided to take the opportunity and collaborate in the eradication of invasive exotic species and remove litter from Playa Grande in Miño.

The 52 volunteers, among them seven from Fragas do Mandeo and five Council employees who helped with the work, were divided into teams and spread out throughout the beach dunes to manually uproot several patches of exotic species: ice plant (Carpobrotus edulis), intermediate periwinkle (Vinca difformis), Pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana), crocosmia (Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora), capeweed (Arctotheca calendula), yucca (Yucca gloriosa) and German iris (Iris germanica). Thus, they avoided these plants to go on colonizing the dunes, displacing in their advance the native vegetation.

Once the work with invasive species was finished, they walked along the beach removing litter and went on by the dunes until the whole sandy area was clean.

The outcome of this morning and afternoon of volunteering activity was five tractors full of vegetal debris, waste and wood. They did not finish off with all the exotic invasive species, but it was an enormous boost to the improvement of the conservation of this beach, which is officially proposed to form part of the Natura Network, when its future extension takes place.

All the exotic species eliminated are garden plants. Therefore it is very important that locals be aware of this problem and do not throw away vegetal debris from their gardens anywhere. They should destroy them and use it as compost for the garden instead.

The Scouts is a youth movement that promotes a value system with the objective of building a better world, more just and supportive. The intervention for environment conservation forms part of their principles of service to society through personal and community responsibility.

Fragas do Mandeo is grateful to the Scouts —as well as to Miño Council and the volunteers that joined the initiative— for their effort in the conservation of our natural areas.

 
Five land stewardship entities, among them Fragas do Mandeo, have joined into partnership for setting up a network to represent them before society and public Administrations.

The Galician Network for Land Stewardship is born with the ambition of promoting the use of this strategy for nature conservation and highlighting the hard work done by the member organizations. Among its objectives are to ease their relationship with other sectors of society, to provide training and to be a platform for interchanging experiences.

Thus, Galicia will have its own network, just like other autonomous regions in the state. One of the first steps will be to join the Foro de Redes y Entidades de Custodia del Territorio (Forum for Land Stewardship Networks and Entities), where the Galician organizations were already taking part just as a group with no legal personality.

The first public activity of the Galician Network will be to held the Training workshop days for the strengthening of the Galician entities of land stewardship. The first day will be devoted to its public presentation; afterwards there will be a workshop on strategies to increase the impact on institutions and to stimulate networking. On the second day the objective is to discuss on good stewardship practices and present different experiences, among them that of Fragas do Mandeo.

This event is included in the project Tejiendo Redes (Network Weaving), promoted by the Foro de Redes y Entidades de Custodia del Territorio and the Xarxa de Custòdia del Territori, with the collaboration of Fundación Biodiversidad and of the Obra Social La Caixa.

For further information, please download the program.

Place: Santiago de Compostela.
Date: 27^th and 28^th March 2015.

 
Taxes are not a pleasant matter, but we can give good news on this issue today: donations to Fragas do Mandeo will get more deductions this year. They may even double!

Reform of the tax incentives to patronage, effective January 1^st thanks to the enactment of the Ley 27/2014, de 27 de noviembre, del impuesto sobre sociedades. Despite its name, it also affects individual income tax (IRPF).

Thus, donations received from individuals during this year will have a deduction of 50% of the first 150 euros. This means that most of our donors will automatically be rebated half the sum they donated in 2015 when they submit next year’s income tax assessment.

If the donated sum is higher than 150 euros, the remaining amount will have a deduction of 27.5%. But if you have donated the two previous years the same or increasing amounts over time, it will be 32.5%.

As for companies and entities that have to declare corporate income tax, the deduction remains 35% in general, but it increases to 37.5% if it is the third consecutive year in donating the same or higher amount.

However, the good news does not end here, since the percentages will be even better next year.

Less and less excuses not to be a donor!

 
Today, within the Recreation Instructor Training Course given at the Youth Centre of Betanzos, students have had the opportunity to find out what land stewardship entails, and to get to know, in depth, our work in favor of conservation of local biodiversity.

Fragas do Mandeo gave a talk and answered the questions of the sixteen students in this year’s training group. After studying several subjects ―among them environmental education― during the 350 hour course, they will be officially qualified to be recreation instructors.

Our message encouraged them, when they become leaders of camps, workshops and outings, to motivate citizens to get directly involved in the conservation of these places, which are both leisure spots and biodiversity shelters and provide us with essential eco-systemic services. We must return nature the favour!

We are grateful to Querqus Recreation School for this great opportunity to spread the word about our work and also to Espazo Xove Betanzos.

 
On February 12^th we have an appointment at the Business and Biodiversity Workshop: Making port and corporate activity compatible in the Biosphere Reserve As Mariñas of A Coruña and the River Mandeo area, organized by the Fundación Global Nature in cooperation with the CEIDA, and with the support of the Fundación Biodiversidad and MAGRAMA.

This workshop will be devoted to discussing the integration of port activity with a vulnerable environment such as the biosphere reserve, explaining future sustainable lines of action and proposing biodiversity preservation measures in the area affected by the port of A Coruña.

Fragas do Mandeo has been invited to take part in the third workshop, as an example of good practices in biodiversity management; we will be accompanied by representatives of COREMA (Conservación y Restauración Medioambiental S. L.) and HabitaQ companies.

You can get additional information by downloading the program.

Place: CEIDA, Castillo de Santa Cruz s/n, Liáns; 15179 Oleiros (A Coruña).
Date: February 12^th, 2015.

 
The volunteers of Fragas do Mandeo are called to work in the woodland plot we have in Os Vellos (Ois, Coirós) next Sunday.

Although roe deer are not harming the chestnut trees planted last year, we have noticed that they are nibbling the oaks and chestnut trees that re-sprouted after the felling. We are going to place protection around them which allows them to grow without any problem, and we will take the opportunity to do some maintenance work.

We will meet in front of the outpatient clinic in Betanzos at 9.30 a.m. to share cars and we will start work on the wood plot at 10 a.m. We will finish in time to come back home for lunch. It is advisable to wear warm clothes, because the weather looks to be cold with a little rain. Fragas do Mandeo will provide the necessary tools.

Should you need additional information, do not hesitate to ask us (in section Contact you can find the necessary information).

Postponed until the 8^th: Because of bad weather conditions it is advisable to postpone the calling until next Sunday, when the forecasts are better.