<![CDATA[Ara in English - forest]]> 10 <![CDATA[Forest management, key to decarbonization]]>

Forest Bioeconomy in the Pyrenees –Bio For Piri The project—in its official name—is the initiative that the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation has developed over the last two years for forest fire prevention and forest management, the promotion of the forest bioeconomy, and knowledge transfer in the region. The strategy aims to transform the threat of large forest fires into an opportunity for rural development and nature conservation. Based on this premise, the event held yesterday in the La Pedrera auditorium focused its discussion on four success stories. The event, moderated by physicist and meteorologist Tomàs Molina, featured Daniel Ibáñez, director of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia; Virginia García, director of the Functional Fabrics unit at Eurecat; Antoni Reig, mayor of the Barony of Rialb; and Miquel Rafa, director of Sustainability and Territory at the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation.

]]> <![CDATA[In Ridaura]]> To ambush me beneath a rain of trees, to cleanse you of news and self-serving opinions, I who grew up at the mouth of the Ridaura, walked up it the other day, leaving through Llagostera and crossing above, from one mill ruin to another, autumn is much better the colder and more of an alder, now of a jay, now of a root, the consciousness of a chameleon above along the paths that run along the Ridaura, mirroring it above, I stepped on leaves that to the eyes were petals and to the ear and feet were crusts. of the rafts like macerated meat, and under each cork there was a congregation of acorns with the brown and shiny shells of young beetles, and I heard an acorn fall behind me, a wooden finger of the forest that had come loose from the thimble and had made a sound tap on my back. Thus, one step forward with each acorn that germinates, the trees wanted to follow me, they stretched, they intertwined, they tensed, the trunks grew muscle, the ivy veins swelled, the poplars opened their arms looking to fly, they were hands and expressions, and there were leaves that were torn off again and again and went to stick among the leaves of another oak, but they were not leaves, they were birds, all the leaves were birds, the forest wanted to fly away and could not, tree by tree it grabbed the sky with its hand, it tied the sky to the earth with the ropes of the trunks, and I noticed. Moss carried by the trees, fine as cloth or thick as velvet, the stones made of soft pillows, green with the green that the trees had lost like transparent fish that lose their leaf scales and you only see the spine, and I arrived by a path to a waterfall of a skull and it dripped onto the thin channel, and suddenly the sun filled the trees with gold coins, the vegetation turned golden, a little drunk, as if champagne were flowing down the Ridaura, the leaves of the bald alders about to fall were effervescent and the birds their color and the still water cracked again with the reflection of bare branches among patches of green and red confetti of floating leaves, and I inside guts that were digesting me, with the writing clinging like ivy to the column of a trunk.

]]> <![CDATA[The lack of forestry workers is a stumbling block for major firefighting plans.]]>

Without professionals working in the landscape, governments are forced to carry out an ever-increasing annual count of burned hectares. The climate crisis, rural depopulation, and the hitherto modest budget dedicated to the forestry sector have paved the way for fires to become more frequent, unpredictable, and virulent. This is known as Megafires – difficult to stop for humans and machinery– have caused uncontrollable and simultaneous outbreaks in the northwest of the Peninsula, and devastating outbreaks in Catalonia, such as the one in La Segarra, or the Els Ports Natural Park, both with fatalities. In the face of these tragedies, the debate is centered on the plans for Fire prevention: they are sufficient, adequate and well-funded?

]]> <![CDATA[Forests for the future]]>

These days, we're once again experiencing the drama of forest fires firsthand. They're not just a problem for the environment and the landscape, but have become a public safety issue. We must take seriously what could happen with the vast expanse of urban development in the forests we have in Catalonia.

]]> <![CDATA[Two great green walls to stop global desertification]]>

China's Green Wall

Three-North Shelter Forest Program

Desertification is a process of land degradation - the process of land becoming infertile - that has been growing for years all over the world due to climatic causes and the direct effect of human action, such as deforestation, grazing and other practices that deplete water resources. In places like China, however, desertification also means literally the advance of the desert, which eats away at the land year after year. The Gobi desert is getting closer and closer to Beijing, contributing to increasingly intense sandstorms over the Chinese capital, leaving apocalyptic images like those of 15 March, with orange skies and pollution that exceeds up to 160 times the recommended limits for health.

]]>