Landscape Laboratory takes part in the European Green Gap project
Last Monday, October 30, the Institute for Territorial Studies in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, launched Green Gap, the latest European project in which the Landscape Laboratory is involved.
This project, the result of an application submitted to the Interreg Spain – Portugal Program (POCTEP 2021-2027), aims to protect, conserve and improve the natural heritage, especially in protected natural spaces, and the elements that make up the green infrastructure in the cross-border region. It also aims to act at local level and create a multifunctional, high-quality green infrastructure network that contributes to sustainable development, halts biodiversity loss and improves natural ecosystems and the urban environment.
The Green Gap project has the Instituto de Estudos do Território, the University of A Coruña, the Deputación de Ourense and the Concello de Pontevedra and Fundacíon CEER as Spanish partners, and Laboratório da Paisagem, the Municipality of Guimarães, the University of Minho, the Municipality of Paredes de Coura, the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests and the Portuguese Agency as Portuguese partners. The consortium proposes to produce four planning documents (three green infrastructure strategies and an action plan), as well as to implement seven Green Infrastructure pilot projects. Two of them will take place in Guimarães, namely the reforestation of the Biodiversity Route, as a way of contributing to forest resilience, and the rehabilitation and renaturalization of sections of the Agrela and Febras streams, which covers the union of the parishes of Briteiros São Salvador and Briteiros Santa Leocádia, and the parishes of Caldelas and Barco.
The project, which will last until June 2026, is 75% co-financed with ERDF funds and has an overall budget of more than 2.178 million euros, with Laboratório da Paisagem receiving a share of more than 143 thousand euros, while the Municipality of Guimarães will have an allocation of 170 thousand euros.