CALENDAR:
START: MARÇ 2022
END:
GOALS:
- Aply the Systematized model of analysis and management of public use for the management of overfrequency in the gorgs of the Torrent de la Cabana.
- Analyze the pressures that this river space receives from the environmental and communication perspective to determine management actions that allow it to maintain its conservation status and even improve it.
- Encouraging citizen participation in the management of the natural space of the Torrent de la Cabana, as an indispensable part of building a consensus of territory and getting people in the immediate environment to support space management actions.
- Extract concrete management proposals that will make it possible to minimise the pressures affecting these wilderness areas from each of the participating municipalities.
- Improve controlled communication, issued from the site's management bodies, through the creation of an official natural space website.
FINANCERS:
- Diputació de Girona
- Ajuntament de Campdevànol
SUMMARY:
Overcrowding in some natural areas of Catalonia is a growing problem, especially in gorges. Due to the lack of regulation, users have been visiting these spaces over time without any specific recreational use regulations or a public use management model that takes into account the environmental perspective. This has a high impact on natural spaces with their consequent effect on biodiversity and the environment, as well as social conflicts due to the discomfort of the inhabitants of these municipalities who are not prepared for this overcrowding.
Some of these areas contain habitats of priority interest and protected species of fauna and flora, and the impact of the lack of regulation at the ecosystem level (waste, noise pollution, erosion, water eutrophication, invasive species ...) causes a displacement or disappearance of the most fragile species and consequently a loss of richness and biodiversity.
In addition, the globalization and dissemination of information on images and locations of these natural spaces on the Internet and social networks makes this problem more likely to increase. The ecosystem of digital media and the transition from receiving users to content creators makes what is published on the web unpredictable, with an increase in content to visit that users add to their bucketlist of essential spaces in be visited, where natural spaces have a high appeal due to their unique landscape.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, in the summer of 2020 there was a much higher overcrowding of these spaces, as a large part of the population has avoided international tourism and has opted for inland tourism. Some of the natural spaces in Catalonia doubled and tripled the number of visiting users compared to the summer seasons of previous years. This fact has further increased the problems mentioned above, leading some municipalities to want to take active management of the situation.
In the case of the Torrent de la Cabana, the situation of overfrequency had already been observed since 2014, and was increasing to this day. Actions to manage overfrequency have already been applied in space, but a review of these measures is required in order to improve space management.
ACTIVITIES DEVELOPED:
- PUBLIC USAGE ANALYSES AND DIAGNOSES
- Environmental Diagnosis: Environmental diagnosis identifies the state of conservation in which space is found in terms of representative components of biodiversity and fundamental ecological processes and, secondly, determines its degree of vulnerability.
- Communication Diagnosis: Communicating diagnosis comprises a description of the exposure of sites to the network (uncontrolled communication) and an analysis of the communication made by the managing body or councils responsible for the ENP (controlled communication).
- Participative process is essential to generate consensus with the immediate territory of natural space in managing overfrequentation, and also to take into account the reality of the most affected people in the immediate environment. It consists of seven phases which take place at various meetings: institutional, with the neighbours concerned, with the population, with the experts of the territory, with the assessment of the feasibility of the proposals, with the return of the affected neighbours and the return to society in general.
- Charge capacity calculation: Through the factors that emerge from environmental diagnosis, communication and participatory process, a formula is applied that will make it possible to know the cargo capacity that space has to maintain its conservation status and even improve it.
- Action Planning: Based on the results of the previous steps, planning actions are determined linked to pressures that are intended to be minimized or eradicated to finally implement them in the overfrequent space.
- CREATE OF WEB PAGE OF THE TORRENT OF THE HUT
Aside from analysis and diagnosis of public use, Campdevànol's consistory detected the need to have an Internet space from which to communicate official implemented measures, as well as information on best practices, official itineraries and the natural values of space.
This website also houses the reservation engine from which users book a day ticket. This system allows you to regulate space shutdown.
