In this area of work, Fundación Global Nature (FGN) participates in the Interreg Sudoe Fleurs locales project, which is now being concluded. Combining efforts with experts from France and Portugal, its goal is to emphasise the value of using native seeds as a potential resource for recovering degraded spaces and restoring their ecosystemic benefits. After more than two years of work, the initial results in Spain highlight the existence of rigid and complex regulations that perpetuate a value chain that is unable to meet the needs of the market. These regulations ‘prevent the straightforward and large-scale use of native seeds by the end consumer’.

“Native seeds are essential when the restoration project is being carried out in an area of high natural value, such as a protected natural area and the like, because the priority is to guarantee the genetic expression of the pre-existing plant community,” explains FGN project coordinator and Fleurs Locales technician Jordi Domingo. He affirms that the aim of “creating green businesses” based on these seeds and mobilising all the actors involved remain part of the solution.

He adds: “even when we are in spaces which are not so sensitive, such as in an urban environment or on industrial land, or where reclamation is not viable due to high cost, for example in agricultural areas, even though this work might not be essential, it is still advisable.” Domingo emphasises the importance of fostering a robust natural environment, with a greater capacity for autonomy and replication, having an enhanced potential to offer the ensuing ecosystemic benefits arising from this restoration process and which represent a real contribution.

“The truth is that restoration projects require large quantities of native seeds, specific seeds, but the supply chain is not offering these possibilities,” explains Laura García, coordinator of Fleurs Locales and a technician at Fundación Global Nature, which has also led a study on obtaining these seeds through the baling of natural grasses.

“It is a necessary challenge, because we have seen that there are many ways to promote the use of these seeds, which will also help to recover specific species that are being lost,” García adds. She confirms that the work with these seeds will continue thanks to various entities beyond FGN, because it has become clear that native seeds are an opportunity in the face of the challenges of the climate crisis: the loss of biodiversity, the scarcity of resources and climate change.

La entrada Optimising resources and coping with biodiversity loss: the opportunity of native seeds se publicó primero en Fleurs Locales.

La entrada Close to 200 attendees for the webinar Restoration with Native Seeds and Other Environmental Solutions se publicó primero en Fleurs Locales.

An agro-social project aimed at the integration of persons with disabilities is the starting point for a project that aims to revitalise the social fabric around a garden with ideas that flourish in all shapes and colours. The Terra i Dona Association, supported by grants from COCEMFE Castellón, has been working since September 2022 in a deprived area of Castellón to highlight the fundamental role of agroecology, becoming a core part of life in this neighbourhood of Castellón. And the Fleurs Locales project participates by showing the importance of caring for ecosystems by using local seeds, in this case, from the region of the Valencian Community.

The organic farming workshops include a wide range of activities: creating vegetable hedges, planting varieties from the local Valencian catalogue, making compost, constructing growing tables using pallets, vertical gardens and even setting up their own irrigation system. About 25 people with disabilities (from COCEMFE Castellón, Ateneu, Red Cross and Afanias) come twice a week to make sure everything is in order. In addition, persons from the Fundación Secretariado Gitano group and the gardening group of Caritas of the San Lorenzo neighbourhood have also been participating here.

Terra i Dona aims to create an engaging project based upon agroecology that allows anyone from the neighbourhood or from the city of Castellón to join the project and help nurture the social fabric by means of the garden.

First visit in October

Fundación Global Nature technician Jordi Domingo is responsible for visiting with and maintaining contact with this group. During his visits, he has presented soil samples used for studying biodiversity and for understanding the life present in our soils when they are cared for with plantings of native seed. He also contrasts these with other samples taken from areas where no efforts have been made and which reveal an absence of life.

In addition, a planting of native seeds was made, which have grown well and are in good shape.

Calendula arvensis y Fumaria officinalis

Vicia sativa

Diplotaxis erucoides

Sinapsis alba

La entrada The San Lorenzo vegetable garden, an agro-social and integrative project in Castellón, in which Fleurs Locales is participating se publicó primero en Fleurs Locales.

In the article, the newspaper explained that researchers are studying the benefits of indigenous herbaceous plants in the Douro vineyards to improve grape quality. But they warn that the seed market is still almost non-existent in the country.

You can see the full article via this link.

La entrada Publico, a national newspaper in Portugal, reports on the project se publicó primero en Fleurs Locales.

La entrada The case of native seeds in the urban park at Valencia’s Malilla Garden: evolution and outlook se publicó primero en Fleurs Locales.

In a single gram of fertile soil, there are up to one hundred million bacteria present, accompanied by hundreds of fungi and microscopic beings. Soil is the reservoir of at least a quarter of the world’s biodiversity, and it is this life that allows us to produce 95% of our food. These organisms are responsible for maintaining nutrient cycles, decomposing organic matter, playing a key role in providing clean water, increasing resilience against floods and drought, and keeping soil diseases and pests at bay, among other essential functions.

And all this biodiversity needs a respite from the soil degradation that has been taking place in recent years, which has now reached one third of the total agricultural area. Without this life, soils will die, as these organisms sustain agroecosystems. “This is why it is necessary to introduce agricultural practices that work in favour of biodiversity,” explains Jordi Domingo, coordinator of the agricultural area of the Fundación Global Nature.

“It is essential to understand the soil as an ecosystem and not as a mere support for our production, which is to say, to understand soils for what they really are: complex (eco)systems. This implies considering agricultural activity as a whole, with the fragile and numerous interactions of all the living beings involved,” adds Laura García, coordinator of the livestock farming area of the Fundación Global Nature.

Specifically, in projects such as Interreg SUDOE Fleurs Locales, results are expected after working with soil samples from areas with native flora and different management practices. “As we measure microbial diversity and activity, we want to check whether the native flora increases this activity and richness, which indicates a higher soil quality, compared to the previous situation,” adds García, who explains that it is “in the rhizosphere, the environment next to the plant roots, where most interactions between plants and microorganisms take place. The plants themselves stimulate the growth of beneficial microbiota through their root exudates to attract allies.”

La entrada Soil without life does not produce food se publicó primero en Fleurs Locales.

Ecological-botanical walk to the Picoto Urban Park (Braga), open to the general public, in the company of two national specialists, Carlos Aguiar (IPB) and Paulo Alves (Floradata) in flora and vegetation. Learning while walking, like the ancient Greeks, is the right way to get to know the flora and vegetation, key knowledge in ecological restoration and the use of indigenous flora in parks and gardens. On this tour, the two scientists spoke about the native plants found along the way.

Target audience: secondary and university students and teachers and the general public | Venue: Parque Urbano do Picoto – Braga | Meeting point: North entrance to the Gualtar campus, Braga | Transport: Free bus to the Picoto Urban Park forest area | Activity date: November 24 | Duration: 2h I Schedule: 1:45 pm I Number of participants: 40 Responsible researchers: António Teixeira, Carlos Aguiar, Teresa Carita, Hernâni Gerós, Paulo Alves.

https://www.ecum.uminho.pt/pt/Sociedade/Paginas/De-Portas-Abertas.aspx

La entrada Eco-botanical tour: learning about native plants while walking. se publicó primero en Fleurs Locales.

Funding for this grant is generated when taxpayers tick the box in support of socially beneficial ventures on their annual personal income tax declaration. The relevant law lists environmental protection as an activity in the public interest worthy of support.

Among the various lines of funding, there is one aimed at supporting the understanding and protection of biodiversity, and to this end MITECO has supported the work of Fundación Global Nature in its Fleurs Locales project. This project supports the restoration of agrobiodiversity, above all through its research into productive varieties (e.g., ancient grains) and of species beneficial to agricultural activity that can play a part in the restoration of soils and semi-natural habitats. The project’s ultimate goal is the restoration of biodiversity in agricultural areas and the promotion of the use of agrobiodiversity in agricultural areas (specifically, of ancient grains).

In addition, the Fleurs Locales project also continues the work of the Fundación Global Nature’s Observatory on Agricultural Biodiversity, which focuses on agricultural biodiversity, working at the level of individual farms, and seeks to minimise the negative impacts, both direct and indirect, of agricultural activities on the life of productive terrain.

These two lines of work are both aimed at climatic goals, and while the main objective of agricultural lands is food production and harvesting and the restoration of degraded areas, their management must be sensitive to the biodiversity that surrounds them and be adaptive to climate change.

La entrada MITECO provides grant to Global Nature for research in the recovery of biodiversity in agricultural areas se publicó primero en Fleurs Locales.

What is the importance of promoting the use of native seeds?

Native seeds are well adapted to the site (soil, climate) and allow for good vegetative coverage amid perennial crops (orchards, vineyards, olive groves).

There are four main advantages: the first is good soil conservation and the reduction of erosion; second, there is a greater permeation of rainwater; the third is that less water is wasted and, lastly, there are greater populations of beneficial species, particularly insect predators and parasitoids of crop pests, as well as pollinators.

What is the future for native seeds?

Native seeds should be used in agriculture to a greater extent and ought not be referred to as ‘weeds’.

Their value in improving the soil and biodiversity in general, including natural pest limitation, should be increasingly understood, and applied.

In addition to use as cover crops amid woody perennial crops, native grasses are also important in biodiverse permanent pastures.

Why do you work with native seeds?

I do not sow native seeds, but I do maintain spontaneous cover crops in my organic orchards (apple and plum), so that the plants are sustained either by seeds (annuals) or by sprouts (perennials). I would like to learn more about the Fleurs Locales project and to participate in it as much as possible.

These are photos of my mixed apple and plum orchard (photos 122818 and 123829) planted in 2015, and of my oldest orchard (1999) (photo “huerto-manzana-abono verde-FZ”).

I annually conduct an additional sowing of lupin (Lupinus albus) to increase biological nitrogen fixation, because the use of chemical nitrogen fertiliser is not allowed in organic agriculture (OA) and ecological farming and also because use of natural fertilizers is one of the 3 priority fertilisation practices of OA. Commercial fertilisers, even organic ones, should only be used as a supplement.

As for the ground cover plants in my orchards, I do not know how many species are present. But in the vineyard where I worked as a consultant for 10 years (the largest one in Portugal with 450 ha., located in Herdade do Esporão, Alentejo, and since 2017 devoted entirely to Organic Farming), according to a floristic study conducted there, in the vineyards there are 100 plant species, both native/spontaneous and sown species.

La entrada “Native seeds should be used in agriculture to a greater extent and ought not be referred to as ‘weeds’” se publicó primero en Fleurs Locales.

The regulations are necessary but, by themselves, are currently insufficient, since for green businesses to thrive, market dynamization is essential. This means that all actors, both public and private, ought to have active roles in the production, multiplication, and use of native seeds.

To this end, FGN’s work on the project involves learning from others, conducting research through the current restoration efforts being done at the project’s pilot farms, and providing support to all actors presently working in the field, with the goal of involving them and creating future lines of work.

More than 250 people expressed interest in the event.

Speakers at the event included Víctor de Felipe Aguilera, the head of the Spanish Plant Variety Office of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who reviewed the state of current legislation and commented on additional steps being taken. The realities of other countries were also discussed, as the project is being carried out in France and Portugal, as well as Spain.

Specifically, French experts from entities such as the Conservatoire d’Espaces Naturels Occitanie and FAB’LIM described how this same situation has evolved in their country; to wit, it is in a more developed state with the ‘Vegetal Local’ brand designation having been created to this end.

All available information can be reached via this link (in Spanish only):

https://fleurslocales.eu/mas-de-250-interesadas-en-el-evento-sobre-semillas-nativas-organizado-por-fundacion-global-nature/

La entrada Congress in Spain: the country urgently needs to update regulations on native seeds se publicó primero en Fleurs Locales.