Caja Rural de Asturias Foundation

The Caja Rural de Asturias Foundation is collaborating with the Brown Bear Foundation (FOP) on the project “Bioeconomy: Chestnuts, Bears and Rural Development”,providing financial support. The aim of the project is to recover, expand and enhance the traditional chestnut groves of the Cantabrian mountain range to generate bioeconomy and rural development and contribute to the conservation of the brown bear and biodiversity. Coordinated by the FOP, the University of Oviedo, SEO/BirdLife, the Fundación Oso de Asturias and the Fundación Camino Lebaniego are participating as partners, and the Principality of Asturias is also collaborating.

The project will run until December 2025 in 18 municipalities in Asturias, Cantabria and Castilla y León, within the distribution area of ​​the Cantabrian brown bear.

Chestnut grove in the Cantabrian mountain range

TENT

The European Nature Trust (TENT) has a long standing relationship with Fundación Oso Pardo (FOP), and they continue to support our work to conserve Brown bears in Spain.

Founded in the year 2000, TENT is committed to supporting ‘living landscapes’ in Europe, where wild species can perform their natural functions in ecosystems; where ecotourism provides a route to sustainable rural development; and local people benefit mutually from wild, healthy nature.

Since 2017, TENT has been supporting our mission across the Cantabrian Brown bear range – more specifically, they have helped us improve connectivity through habitat restoration, and also to promote coexistence between humans and bears in the Cantabrian mountains.

Pure Land Foundation

The Tierra Pura Foundation actively collaborates with the Brown Bear Foundation (FOP) in the LIFE project Osos con Futuro, providing experience and technical knowledge, as well as financial support. The aim of LIFE is to contribute to the adaptation of the species to climate change. One of the main lines of action of the project, which will run until 2025, is the planting of 150,000 native trees producing fleshy fruit, 25,000 chestnut trees grafted with native varieties and the recovery of chestnut groves and oak forests.

The powerful planting campaign represents an important commitment by the Tierra Pura Foundation to the recovery of the brown bear habitat in the Cantabrian mountain range and the efforts to conserve it. It also contributes to the mitigation of climate change through the fixation of CO2 in plant biomass and organic matter in the soil. This project can fix between 2,000 and 3,000 tons of CO2 annually through planting actions alone.

Chestnut trees in bloom in the Cantabrian mountain range