The Activity Day includes a session open to the public about dune plant cultivation methods.
The European LIFE ARCOS Project, led by the University of Oviedo, is funded by the European Union via the LIFE+Nature programme. The coordination of the scientific-technical aspects is the responsibility of personnel from the institution affiliated to the Scientific Team from the Atlantic Botanical Garden and to the Institute of Natural Resources and Territorial Planning. The main aim of the project is to restore ten coastal dune systems located in Sites of Community Importance within the Natura 2000 Network. Asturias, Cantabria and the Basque Country are the Autonomous Communities where this project will be undertaken.
Among the conservation actions, is the particularly outstanding reintroduction of species characteristic to dune ecosystems, which have been considerably altered by human activity and by catastrophic natural phenomena. The actions include collecting seeds from the environments under restoration and growing the plants needed to undertake the envisaged planting activities. The work centres on species native to the dune environments, both structural as well as rare or threatened. There is little information available regarding the latter in terms of more appropriate reproduction methods, in view to developing the restoration programmes.
The technical day will focus on the discussion of known methods of growing this species under controlled conditions and in the development of cultivation protocols that enable a comparison of the results obtained with different techniques, with the aim of prioritizing those that are the most successful.
PROGRAMME
12:00 to 14:00: closed session visit to nurseries at the Atlantic Botanical Garden to carry out plant reproduction practices.
15:00 to 17:00: closed session to discuss proposals about the development of cultivation
Speakers:
Laura Plaza Arregui works in the Andalusia Administration in the development of propagation techniques for threatened and/or protected species in Andalusia. She is currently participating in another project from the LIFE programme, with the aim of recovering the Andalusian coastline, specifically, its dune systems. From her position as the Leader of the Andalusian Network of Botanical Gardens, she coordinates the collection of germplasm of the species included in the protection catalogues of this Autonomous Community, has participated in the Flora Ibérica project, and among other publications she is the author of Helechos amenazados de Andalucía:Avances en conservación (Threatened ferns of Andalusia: Conservation advances)
Carlos Ley Vega de Seonae, manager of the Ecología Litoral company, has far-reaching experience in managing and handling dune systems. Ecología Litoral is the company that is currently managing the nursery of dune plants located in Somo, Loredo (Cantabria), and that provides – via the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Directorate General of the Coasts – the majority of structural plants used in national coastal restoration programmes. It is also participating in LIFE ARCOS, responsible for the restoration actions in 4 of the 10 targeted dune systems. He is the co-author, among many other proposals, of the Coastal Dune Restoration Manual published by the Ministry for the Environment.