The "El Chaparrillo" Agri-environmental Research Centre, a stage for the Life+IBERLINCE project’s dissemination and awareness activities

Among the actions being carried out by the LIFE+Iberlince Project are the outreach activities, implemented transversally with the goal of reaching all sectors of society.

The numerous, noteworthy dissemination and awareness-raising activities focus not only on school-aged public, but also engage with various sectors, including stockbreeders, landowners, farmers, hunters, environmental education professionals, as well as the leisure and tourism sector.

Thus, the "El Chaparrillo" Agri-environmental Research Centre, located in Ciudad Real, along with specialists from FOMECAM, Iberlince project partner in Castilla-La Mancha, provided a favourable setting to disseminate first-hand information regarding the development of the Iberian lynx reintroduction project in Spain and Portugal, and specifically the positive results being achieved in Castilla-La Mancha and its two reintroduction areas: Eastern Sierra Morena and Montes de Toledo.

It is imperative to remember that these facilities house one of the centres of reference for the recovery of wild fauna, and in particular for the management of the autonomous community’s lynx population.

The data presented in each of these informative activities highlights the success of the reintroduction project, which is a result of the actions carried out for the improvement of the Mediterranean habitat, vital for specimen establishment and the consolidation of territorial females in the project’s target areas.

In total, fifty farmers attended this series of lectures and were able to obtain real and objective information, and value the biodiversity of fauna that must exist in our natural spaces, which is fully compatible with all activities, from a collaborative standpoint, through hunting, agricultural and forestry management formulas.

Additionally, assistants from the Ornithological Monitor and Guide course showed great interest in the presented information, which they welcomed since interrelation within the Mediterranean ecosystems that surrounds us is fundamental. As conveyers of environmental education, they are able to shed light on the relevance and importance of the Iberian lynx as a regulator of other predatorial populations, and their role in landscape modelling; and also to highlight the uniqueness and beauty of this species of ours.

We thank those at the "El Chaparrillo" Agri-environmental Research Centre who allowed us to reach the various sectors of society which, in one way or another, are involved in the use and enjoyment of the natural environment, because the LIFE+Iberlince Project is a project for them all.