The  MOVING project MOVING project has recently  published a survey among its 23 Reference Regions  to identify the presence of different protected natural sites on them and provide valuable insights on the added value and development implications of having these designated environmental protected zones within these mountain areas.

Our AEIDL colleague Blanca Casares, collected the evidence following a participatory approach from these 23 areas. The main results show that 40% (9 of 23) of these MOVING Reference Regions do not have any biosphere reserves and 60% of them (14 on 23) have at least one Biosphere reserve. Balancing environmental and economic consideration is a sensitive issue. Over half responses from these 23 areas showed that indicated that the presence of natural areas, and the enhanced level of regulation and protection they entail, did not represent a constraint or limitation to agricultural and farming value chains, while 43.5% did.

The two most frequently mentioned constraints and restrictions were those related to regulations in business activity or prevention measures (34,8%), and land and resources use (30,4%), followed by limitations related to tourism and visitor management (13%). The 39.1% of the responses highlighted that the main added values of these protected areas lie in tourism. Over one third felt that this also provided a welcome opportunity for improving environmental quality, ecosystem resilience and increasing sustainable practices. For further details please check Blanca´s MOVING Natural Sites briefing!