“We have no investment capacity, we are not in a position to respond to challenges that have arisen, and more and more are arising due to the drought”, comments Raimon Roda, managing director of the Serra de Collserola natural park. The budget for 2024 approved on the 21st is 6.6 million euros, a figure similar to that of previous years and even lower if compared to that of previous decades. Given this economic stagnation, Roda points out that they are exploring patronage and other funding avenues to face with more resources one of the most important challenges they face, forest management as a central element to prevent large fires.
Roda explains that the staff chapter (60 workers) takes the bulk of the budget for this protected space. Just as the mayor of Barcelona, ??Jaume Collboni, did on November 10, when he was appointed president of the park consortium, Roda is also calling on the Generalitat to increase the contribution. While the Diputació de Barcelona and the Metropolitan Area (AMB) cover nearly 85% of Collserola’s budget, the Generalitat’s share is limited to 3%, highlights Roda.
The economic restrictions of recent years have prevented the natural park from developing the lines set out in the Collserola special plan (PEPnat), approved in 2021, and also from being able to carry out the necessary actions in the field of forest management to consolidate the strategy against forest fires. Precisely, in this new four-year mandate of the consortium, the primary objective is to work to improve the situation of the forests in times in which the number of days with a high risk of fire has increased due to the high temperatures and the lack of rain . They have also decided to promote an agroforestry mosaic that adapts to the new climatic conditions.
The protected area of ??Collserola, divided into nine municipal terms, includes a total of 8,170 hectares, 60% privately owned and 40% public. Roda comments that “the cost of intervening in a forest hectare ranges between 1,200 and 2,500 euros, a figure that includes everything from cutting bushes to opening prevention strips or clearing”. The managing director specifies that they are looking for the involvement of companies via patronage to obtain nearly 500,000 euros to allocate to this task.
To diversify the funding sources, they are also opting for subsidies provided for in the Life program of the European Union and the Biodiversity Foundation, which add up to more than 1.6 million euros, in addition to continuing to claim from the Generalitat to increase the contribution
The natural park expects to close in 2023 with close to 5.2 million visitors, the same as in 2022. It should be remembered that in the years of the pandemic it reached 6.2 million, in 2020, and 6.4 million, in 2021, the all-time high.
