Long live the green infrastructures of the Peninsula

Long live the green infrastructures of the Peninsula

Climate change is the obsession of public administrations, but hidden behind it appears the loss of biodiversity

  «The snow in the Pyrenees, by 2050 could decrease by half to 1,800 meters, according to the current reference, and average temperatures could rise between 1 and 2 or 7ºC until 2030 and even more, between 2 and 4º C more for the horizon 2050 », according to the report 'Climate Change in the Pyrenees: impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptation', coordinated by the Pyrenean Observatory of Climate Change (OPCC). Other reports warn of the disappearance of the Amazon and others point to the rise in temperature in the Poles.

  "We can not continue on the path of biodiversity loss, so it is essential to put this issue at the center of political agendas so that, in two years, we can present ambitious objectives that give an effective response to this complex challenge", says Hugo Morán, Secretary of State for the Environment. The loss of biodiversity has a great ally: climate change. "The loss of biodiversity is taking a back seat because the international community is focusing its efforts on curbing the warming," said Morán in his participation in the XIV World Summit on Biological Diversity held in Egypt.

In his speech, the Secretary of State for the Environment recalled that the ministry for the Ecological Transition is finishing preparing the State Strategy for Green Infrastructure and Ecological Connectivity and Restoration. The main objectives of this plan are to reduce the effects of fragmentation and the loss of ecological connectivity caused by changes in land use or as a consequence of the presence of infrastructures, mitigate the effects of climate change and restore and protect the services that They give ecosystems.

The goal of this work is not other than to lay the foundations to conserve the different elements that make up the green infrastructures of Spain, whether terrestrial or marine. With this work, the Administrations will be able to carry out actions in accordance with the protection, safety and functionality of the different ecosystems in the Peninsula.

A project that especially seeks to reduce the effects of fragmentation and the loss of ecological connectivity caused by changes in land use or as a consequence of the presence of infrastructures, mitigate the effects of climate change and restore and protect the services that provide us the ecosystems. "It is time to reinforce the tools that Spain has incorporated in the preservation of biodiversity," said Morán in Egypt, where he also referred to the "Spanish Enterprise and Biodiversity Initiative, which consists of establishing alliances between the strategy of preservation of the environment by of large companies that incorporate a code of good practices to reconsider their model of execution of large infrastructures.

Order the territory

The European Union's position at the Sharm-El Sheick meeting is that the process for the adoption of such a post-2020 framework will allow for the development of ambitious, realistic and adequate, measurable and time-bound objectives that take advantage of and reinforce the current objectives of the so-called Aichi Targets and that the progress of these objectives can be established effectively.

"The planet can not afford to continue losing biodiversity at this accelerated pace, which brings us closer to the sixth mass extinction, as the scientific community has already warned," said the Secretary of State for the Environment.

Morán focused on the positive tools that already exist in Spain and that allow better integration of biodiversity in decision-making related to the development of infrastructures, such as spatial planning, land use management and environmental assessment of plans , programs and projects. Tools that go through the green infrastructure put in place by the Ministry of Ecological Transition and restoration.