Warm welcome to Junta de Castilla y León as EUSTAFOR’s newest member and congratulates to Associazione Nazionale delle Attività Regionali Forestali on becoming a voting member

EUSTAFOR is pleased to announce that Dirección General del Medio Natural – Junta de Castilla y León from Spain became the newest member of our association as of 1 June 2019.

The region of Castilla y León is one of the largest European regions and preserves an extraordinary richness of forests and biodiversity. Public forests, mostly owned by municipalities and other local entities, occupy around 2,5 million hectares, which is 50% of the forest and other wooded land area.

According to the Spanish national and regional forest laws, the regional administration, Junta de Castilla y León, is responsible for managing most of these public forests, since the regional ministry for the environment, “Consejeríade Fomento y Medio Ambiente,”shares the duty of managing forests declared of public utility with the local entities who own the land. Land is managed for multiple functions, including the production of wood and other resources such as resin, cork, nuts and mushrooms, but mostly for social benefits, like biodiversity conservation, public use, water quality and other ecosystem services.

Our member from Italy – Associazione Nazionale delle Attività Regionali Forestali (ANARF)– has become a voting member of EUSTAFOR as of this year. ANARF’s decision represents a significant change as regards the representation of Italian state forestry in EUSTAFOR.

EUSTAFOR welcomes Junta de Castilla y Leónas a new associated member and ANARF as a new voting member. Their membership provides EUSTAFOR with a more balanced geographic representation of the various regions of Europe. We are looking forward to enhanced cooperation in the future.