Taking a route through a natural area following the location instructions of a mobile application, through a GPS navigator, sometimes creates dangerous situations. For those who enter the natural enclave, many times without having much knowledge of the place, and also for the protected space of fauna and flora, with places that suffer from overcrowding or the unwanted presence of people certain periods of the year.
With the aim of preventing these situations of double risk, a line of collaboration has been opened between the Department of Climate Action and Google, owner of two of the most used applications: Google Maps and Waze, the ‘ultimate for routes by car or motorbike. We will also work with Wikiloc, one of the applications most used by fans of exploring nature, both on foot and by bike.
Applications will give priority to official routes, with the supervision of the Generalitat and official bodies. The aim is to promote a “more civic use of natural spaces”. We are also working to improve the information in mobile geolocation applications, to avoid frequent inaccurate or erroneous indications. The result is that those who follow them end up lost in the mountains, and sometimes put themselves in danger.
To remedy this, the Generalitat will collaborate with Google to improve information on accesses and routes to natural parks. “Until now they presented, in some cases, inaccurate or highly sensitive locations”, highlights Acció Climàtica.
Giving priority to official routes will prevent overcrowding or avoid passing through places of high environmental sensitivity, argues the Generalitat. More security for visitors and also more protection of the natural environment.
One of the major concerns of the competent administrations is the very high number of rescues in the natural environment, especially in the mountains, with more and more visitors putting themselves in danger.
The collaboration with Google and Wikiloc will have a long way to go. They want to incorporate live notifications into mobility applications to warn of specific alert situations. For example, at a time of high risk of forest fire, a situation that is more frequent every summer, or of floods, you would be alerted of the temporary closure to access a natural park. Periods of special protection for flora and fauna could also be included, such as a breeding season for a certain species with the prohibition to approach the area.
In a second phase, they want to include the instructions and information from other administrations with competences in regulating access to natural spaces, as is the case of town councils.
