A seed is much more than just the origin of a plant, a flower or a food. A seed is the beginning of life and is capable of significantly influencing the recovery of degraded soil to the point of converting it into a living space capable of offering an entire ecosystem. These seeds can be used in the most diverse places, as they offer a varied mosaic of possibilities from the gutters of train tracks to the tree pits that we see on our sidewalks, neglected gardens, abandoned urban and peri-urban spaces, vineyard crops, olive groves, pastures, various infrastructures. All these places, if they are degraded, can be filled with life thanks to indigenous flowers.
The key to recovering biodiversity with flowers is the quality of the seed, which, above all, must be indigenous, that is, from the place where it is going to be sown. This allows not only a high implantation success rate, but also the creation of a strong ecosystem that will survive and be self-perpetuating. “Fleurs Locales” is a project in which experts from Spain, France and Portugal work in this complex and exciting field. Loss of biodiversity, accelerated by climate change, is one of the great problems of our time, and this project aims to reverse this decline.
Green business
“Fleurs Locales” participants work around a common territorial strategy that makes the use of native seeds profitable, creating ‘green business’. To this end, they set up various pilot tests in each of the three countries and carry out concrete actions to raise their profile and be commercially available. At the same time, they work closely with the administration to put indigenous seeds at the centre of the production and supply chain.
Ultimately, the project will create a network of experts who will study, define and establish nature-based solutions through indigenous seeds or seed mixtures that are efficient and profitable in contexts such as vineyards, agrosystems and Mediterranean natural environments.
The main partners are: Conservatoire d’espaces naturels d’Occitanie (CEN L-R) and Center d’Initiatives pour Valoriser l’Agriculture et le Milieu rural Garrigues de Thau (FAB’LIM) from France; Fundación Global Nature (FGN) and the Semillas Silvestres company from Spain; and the Centre for Molecular and Environmental Biology of the University of Minho (CITAB-UM), the National Institute for Agricultural and Veterinary Research (INIAV) and the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (IPB) from Portugal.
In addition, each country has a series of associated entities whose work is essential for the optimal development of the project. In total, there are 21 different entities that ensure the involvement of the public and private sectors and the scientific and technical knowledge necessary to achieve the project’s objectives. In Spain, networking includes the Spanish Association of Olive Tree Municipalities, the Local Government of Córdoba, the General Rural Development Directorate of the Department of Agriculture in Valencia, the Forum of Networks and Custody Entities, and the General Sub-Directorate of Terrestrial and Marine Biodiversity of the Ministry for Ecological Transition (MITECO).
The Fleurs Locales project is co-financed by the Interreg Sudoe Program and the European Regional Development Fund. It started in May 2020 and will end in April 2023 and has a budget of € 1,593,690.00.
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