Urban Catalonia cannot turn its back on rural Catalonia.

Forests occupy more than 41% of Catalonia's territory, and in the last thirty years they have gained ground, specifically 122,000 hectares. This might seem like good news, but it doesn't have to be. The case of Montseny is a good example: it now has more trees than a century ago, as explained by the director of conservation of the Natural Park, Daniel Guinart, but the drop in rainfall, the increase in heat, and uncontrolled forest cover are smothering the trees, and the dead vegetation becomes fuel for potential forest fires.

Nature reserves aside, in Montseny, as in much of Catalonia, agricultural uses and productive forest management have been abandoned. Since the 1950s, pastures, crops, and charcoal burners have been disappearing. The forest has been swallowing up the space left by these activities and has increasingly fewer open spaces. This also affects biodiversity: butterflies such as the large antbird, birds such as the short-toed lark and the hen harrier, and plants such as the orchid Spiranthes aestivalis They depend on open meadows and fields to survive. In the event of a fire, these clearer areas can help contain the flames, while large, uninterrupted forests make it more difficult. Forestry engineer and CREAF researcher Diana Pascual recalls, for example, that in February 2022, some vineyards stopped a fire that threatened the urban center of Roses.

Furthermore, the Natural Park has been subject to additional human pressure, punctual but massive. On any autumn weekend and for much of the year, Montseny welcomes thousands of Catalans eager to find mushrooms, breathe fresh air, exercise, or get away from the city. In 2023 alone, more than 290,000 vehicles visited the park. This reality forces us to address the management of the Montseny Natural Park, beyond the areas that are nature reserves, with the added problem that 84% of the park is privately owned. Private owners are not required to have management plans agreed upon with the government, and those who do are not required to implement them either. It's also typically not economically viable, and subsidies don't cover everything that should be done.

Abandoning fields, pastures, and forests is neither more ecological nor necessarily favorable to nature. We must regain a presence in the territory we have been ignoring for too many years. And this necessarily requires returning to life and, therefore, returning to economic activities that fit in with the environment, which, rather than degrading it, help to care for it. Activities that must be viable and subject to controls, yes, but not stifled by bureaucracy. Urban Catalonia cannot turn its back on rural Catalonia and use it only when it suits it, because they are the same country, because if one degrades the other, it will suffer the consequences.

With the ongoing climate crisis, the increase in heat waves and drought episodes, real territorial management is also becoming increasingly necessary. Extreme forest fires are a real danger but also a warning.