Participating Entities
Who we are
Santa María la Real Foundation
The Foundation is a private, not-for-profit cultural and social organisation with a national scope. Created around the restoration of the Monastery of Santa María la Real in Aguilar de Campoo, it currently has a team of more than two hundred professionals and different branches throughout Spain.
One of its priorities is to promote the conservation, restoration and enhancement of the assets that make up the Cultural, Natural and Social Heritage, as well as to facilitate their knowledge and dissemination, objectives for which it works with a focus on innovation, committed to the future of people, heritage and landscape as the cornerstones of its activity and the beneficiaries of its efforts.
It has extensive experience in the management of national and international programmes dedicated to the conservation and management of heritage as a cultural and economic driver of the territory.
In this project, the Foundation participates as the Main Beneficiary, being responsible for the management and communication of all the activities, as well as the execution of various tasks for the creation of the Cross-border Ecological Observatory.
Iberian Association of Municipalities along the Douro River(AIMRD)
The Iberian Association of Municipalities Bordering the Douro (AIMRD) is the main Spanish-Portuguese cooperation entity in the territorial framework of the Douro. Since its constitution in 1994, it has maintained a firm commitment to sustainable and integral development around the river, building a bridge to the future on the basis of a common territory, as well as promoting the elaboration of an integral development project whose centre is the Douro River, with its multiple potentialities, covering the area of the riverside municipalities.
The Douro, from its source in Soria to its mouth in Oporto, structures the landscape and configures unique sceneries of meadows, reservoirs, backwaters and canyons that have been a source of inspiration for poets and an unequivocal symbol of unity and identity among our peoples.
The Association preserves all these values, capacities and riches for future generations, turning the river into an element of cultural and economic dynamisation, and a symbol of sustainable development and ecological commitment.
It is responsible for the implementation on the ground of green infrastructure solutions on a regional and local scale, through the GR14 (La Senda del Duero), for the promotion of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Efficient Habitat Cluster (AEICE)
A private non-profit association whose mission is to promote the competitiveness and transformation of the habitat industry through strategic actions based on innovation and business collaboration, being a meeting point for all agents in the sector, and interrelation between them and with the different public and private actors. It brings together one hundred and fifty members from the entire habitat value chain, from endogenous resources to the revaluation of construction waste, passing through architecture, engineering and construction, auxiliary services and the transformation industry.
Its aim is to provide a collaborative response to the challenges we face, as a sector and as a society, acting jointly as an agent of change through strategic actions in the fields of construction 4.0, sustainable rehabilitation, positive energy buildings and neighbourhoods, circular construction, friendly and healthy environments, the enhancement of heritage, and smart and sustainable equipment.
AEICE is also an instrument for the development of the territory, in that it promotes, through innovation, collaboration, training, internationalisation and communication, the economic and social development of the environment and the territories in which it carries out its actions.
The project works mainly on research and systematisation of actions for the creation of the Cross-Border Ecological Observatory
University of Salamanca – CEADIR
The University of Salamanca (USAL), one of the oldest in Europe, is today a modern European university, recognised among the most outstanding in national and international rankings, with some 2,200 researchers distributed in 57 university departments, 26 faculties and university schools, 12 research institutes and 11 research centres.
One of these research centres is the CEADIR (Centre for Environmental Studies and Rural Dynamisation), conceived as a meeting place and a laboratory of ideas to generate inter- and transdisciplinary solutions to address the demographic challenges and ecological transition in peripheral territories seriously affected by depopulation. It is currently made up of some 50 researchers specialising in environmental and agricultural sciences, geology, economics and rural development, and biodemography.
The USAL in this project contributes its experience in research projects on biodiversity and ecological connectivity, being responsible for the activities that establish the physical bases and the framework of work on green infrastructures and ecosystem services, mainly in the Castilian and Leonese territory.
Palombar
Palombar is a non-profit environmental non-governmental organisation, created in 2000, whose mission is to conserve biodiversity, wild, forest and agricultural ecosystems and to preserve the rural built heritage, as well as traditional building techniques.
The organisation, which operates guided by a pedagogical and cooperative approach, also promotes scientific research in the areas of Ecology, Conservation Biology and Ecosystem Management, environmental education, community development and rural revitalisation.
Palombar’s area of intervention is the north of Portugal.
In the project, it coordinates part of the activities in the Portuguese area that establish the physical bases and the framework of work on green infrastructures and ecosystem services.
Intermunicipal Community of the Douro (CIM DOURO)
Created in 2009, the Comunidade Intermunicipal do Douro, also known as CIM Douro, brings together 19 municipalities spread over the districts of Bragança, Vila Real, Guarda and Viseu, intrinsically marked by their landscape, culture, gastronomy, security, business dynamism, welfare and hospitality of its people.
The CIM Douro encompasses the municipalities of Alijó, Armamar, Carrazeda de Ansiães, Freixo de Espada à Cinta, Lamego, Mesão Frio, Moimenta da Beira, Murça, Penedono, Peso da Régua, Sabrosa, Santa Marta de Penaguião, São João da Pesqueira, Sernancelhe, Tabuaço, Tarouca, Torre de Moncorvo, Vila Nova de Foz Coa and Vila Real.
Its main objective is to promote coordination between its member municipalities, creating common strategic plans for mobility, public investment, energy efficiency and the structuring of the urban network, boosting the competitiveness of its municipalities through innovation, knowledge and digital transformation, and developing cohesion policies that promote skilled employment and economic dynamism.
The activity of the CIM Douro in the project focuses on the design and implementation of pilot elements of green infrastructure in localities of the cross-border territory of the Community.
Intermunicipal Community of the Terras de Trás-os-Montes (CIM_TTM)
The Comunidade Intermunicipal das Terras de Trás-os-Montes (CIM-TTM) is a group of municipalities composed of nine municipalities of the NUT III of Alto Trás-Os-Montes: Alfândega da Fé, Bragança, Macedo de Cavaleiros, Miranda do Douro, Mirandela, Mogadouro, Vila Flor, Vimioso and Vinhais. Created in September 2013, its main mission is to achieve the common interests of its member municipalities, maximising synergies, strengthening inter-municipal cooperation and promoting the sustained and integrated development of the territory, based on a supra-municipal strategy.
Taking this new approach to territorial development as a guideline, the CIM-TTM has been working to enhance the economic, social, environmental and cultural values of the region, with the aim of making this territory an ecoregion of excellence, recognised nationally and internationally, using its natural values and excellent products as the main lever. A strategy that involves enhancing the value of the territory’s identity, affirming it as a place that offers a differentiated quality of life to residents and tourists.
The activity of the CIM-TTM in the project focuses on the design and implementation of pilot elements of green infrastructure in the cross-border territory of the Community.
Zamora City Council
Zamora City Council is working on the design of steps for the implementation of the European Green Infrastructure Strategy at local, peri-urban, regional and cross-border level, as a tool for environmental management in territories. It aims to ensure the integrity and protection of the ecosystem services that constitute green infrastructure. This strategy opens up new possibilities for redeveloping and renaturalising diverse areas with a remarkable degree of environmental conservation, areas that are also directly associated with a rich cultural heritage based on nature.
The City Council is currently carrying out various projects to analyse the existing degree of connection of the ecological corridors in the Zamorano Cultural Landscape as a basis for biodiversity, with a view to implementing concrete interventions to improve the ecosystem. OET_DURIUS is one of these projects that propose to recover and improve ecological connectivity through the renaturalisation of the Duero River and the entire municipality of Zamora.
It participates in all project activities, bringing its extensive experience in cross-border activities around the Duero and the local implementation of OET Durius solutions.
