This morning a group of 20 volunteers were working on the plots by the River Mandeo where Fragas do Mandeo does land stewardship to celebrate the Native species day, promoted by the project Tejiendo Redes (Network Weaving), of the Xarxa de Custòdia del Territori and the Obra Social “la Caixa” (“la Caixa” Foundation).
The day looked perfect, since it dawned sunny and with nice temperature. The volunteers began the day walking a route to get to know the plots in which we do land stewardship. There they could see the delicate flowers of the Narcissus asturiensis, catalogued as endangered species, and the quality of the riparian woods, a priority habitat.
Once the walk was finished, the volunteers divided into several groups and took the tools to start working with determination. The results exceeded our expectations. In the plot of 3.465 m2 where eucalyptus used to thrive, none is left, even though they were more than four meters high and the grove was covered by blackberries which made the work difficult. Along the river bank they uprooted almost 60 garden privets Ligustrum ovalifolium and every Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora they could find. They cut also 5 specimens of Platanus x hispanica. On the contrary, the fragility of Tradescantia fluminensis deceived us since, although it seems easy to uproot, in reality it is really difficult just because it easily breaks ―each piece can take root and produce a new plant― and we could not use rakes because of the blackberries and the branches fallen from the eucalyptus.
Those who were removing litter were not left behind: they filled up to the margin a 4.8 m3 trailer cage with all kinds of litter: a toilet, three tyres, car seats, a motorcycle in parts…
In short: a very productive day which shows that volunteers can do a lot for nature conservation. We express our gratitude to all of them.
Still pending for the future is the elimination of the spiderwort, drying out several shoots of Robinia pseudoacacia and cutting some big eucalyptus in one of the other plots, so that we can assume to have completed the elimination of exotic species in this area.
