November 2019

The Resifarms kick-off meeting took place in the headquarters of Fundació Emys, the organisation coordinating this Erasmus+ project and a land stewardship organisation located in la Selva, a region in north-west Catalonia.

Both the coordination meeting and the learning-teaching training event took place within this exciting context during early November, with the participation of project partners from Romania, Italy, Czech Republic, France and Catalonia. Resifarms partners worked on the initial phase of the project, although some important steps had already been done before the meeting. During the coordination meeting, partners first discussed about tasks distribution amongst organisations and afterwards they delve into specific actions, such as defining Toolkit preliminary structure and content or evaluating different options for the self-assessment test platforms. Partners talked about and clarified different economic and administrative aspects of the project. At last but not least, a work plan for the coming months was established.

First learning-teaching training event at Fundació Emys (Photo: Fundació Emys).

Moreover, different members of each organisation participated in the learning-teaching training event, giving a talk about non-productive structures in agricultural lands and its conservation. Fundació Emys talked about pressures and threats to ponds and their biodiversity, Fundatia ADEPT about landscape and arboreal ecosystems, Český Svaz Ochránců Přírody about field margins, Conservatoire d’Espaces Naturels du Languedoc-Rousillon about open spaces, Xarxa per a la Conservació de la Natura about the effect of climate change in agriculture and Comitato per le Oasi WWF dell’Area Fiorentina about how to evaluate and monitor the impact of conservation. Participants had the opportunity to discuss about each topic after the session, learning about other participants’ experience and knowledge.

Vineyard visited during the field trip where IAEDEN is implementing conservation measures through a land stewardship agreement (Photo: Fundació Emys).

Later on, Emys organised a field trip for all members, to visit different estates where they or other organisation (IAEDEN) are implementing conservation measures, beginning by its own facilities, Can Moragues, in Riudarenes.

Talks and discussion information will be translated into a free toolkit, available for anyone interested in applying methods to improve biodiversity of non-productive agricultural lands.