At the end of January, a female Maronesa cow was born in the Faia Brava Reserve, one of the Rewilding Europe core areas in Western Iberia. Totally, there are now 10 Maronesa individuals living in a semi-wild way at Faia Brava.
Driving one’s own draft reindeer with a sled through the snow-covered landscape and across frozen lakes in Sweden! This is the fantastic Grand Prize (for two!) in the December draw of the Rewilding Europe Travel Club. What more can you wish for a Christmas present!
Silent, motionless, perched on a ledge at Las Batuecas, intent on capturing nuances of ancient lines that depict the might and manner of wild goats, I gain awareness of a large bird, voicing its coarse, high-pitched song in peaceful interludes from the trees behind me.
After our successful crowdfunding campaign, Associação Transumância e Natureza (ATN) has now bought 6 Tuareg-style tents and produced a complete all-included program (meals, tents, sleeping bags and mattresses) to use mainly for school groups who want to visit the area. The ATN team will be in charge of all the logistics for these educational trips to Faia Brava Reserve.
23 Retuertas horses, coming from the Doñana biological station in southern Spain, were released in the Campanarios de Azaba biological reserve on October 7. The release was possible thanks to Fundación Naturaleza y Hombre in Spain, land owner of the reserve, with support from Rewilding Europe.
The period from July to October is a risky one in Western Iberia every year. You cannot imagine how high the temperatures can get and how scarce the rains most often are. This means a great risk of fire. Even if fire is a natural phenomenon here and has always been, the frequency has increased to very high and dangerous levels that are not natural. Not because of the climate, but rather because of humans and their habits.
Large-scale land use agreements in Portugal have proved to be very difficult to achieve, as the average size of rural properties is well under two hectares. Often, land is distributed among several owners, making the task of contacting them very difficult and time-consuming. In addition, some studies state that there are two million hectares of land in Portugal where landowners are not identified.
The first edition of the Erasmus Intensive Programme “European Wilderness Entrepreneurship” was a great success for the Western Iberia rewilding area. During this two week event a consortium of thirty students and fifteen lecturers/researchers from universities in Bulgaria, Croatia, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands looked at the role of entrepreneurship to promote the future wilderness of Western Iberia.
After a winter that will be remembered as the wettest in Spain for the past 51 years – according to rainfall data recorded by the Spanish Meteorological Agency AEMET – spring has broken into Western Iberia. These heavy rains have managed to increase water reserves compared to the same dates last year.
Two Returta foals were born in Western Iberia. The birth of these two foals is a great demonstration of their adaptation to the dehesa they live in.
