Posts Tagged ‘field trip#8217;

Madrid Rio is part of one of the biggest urban projects of Madrid of the last decade. This huge project consisted in creating a tunnel for the highly congested M-30 beltway. The space that was freed on the surface was redesigned as a green area, contributing to the quality of life in the city. It makes the river Manzanares, which was previously surrounded by the highway lanes, visible again.

Madrid Rio has been opened in the first half of 2011. In the Introduction Week of the Master, we studied this brand-new area as the “urban” part of our exploration of Madrid.

Ginés Garrido, the lead architect who designed the park, was our expert guide this time. He explained the main ideas behind the project to the students of the Master in Global Environmental Change. Madrid Rio connects the space previously occupied by the M-30 in two directions. First of all, it connects with the green spaces on both sides of the city, the mountains to the north, and the meseta to the south. Also, it connects the two sides of the river, which were previously fairly badly connected. Several bridges were added.

To explore this new urban space, we cycled from the far North, where the highway goes under the ground, to the southern tip of Madrid Rio, where we crossed the river and cycled back, using the lanes on the other side. We were lucky as this was one of the last sunny days of October…

This promotional video of the project gives you a taste of the massive transformation of this urban space.

Understanding our surroundings, from our backyard to the city and region we live in, is an important aspect of learning to perceive global environmental change. We learn about particular places and their particular histories to develop a full understanding and appreciation of these places and their connections to other places.

In the Introduction Week, students and professors of the Master in Global Environmental Change visited two parts in Madrid, one rural and one urban area. In each, we looked at the particular history of the site, guided by an expert. First, we visited Natural Park Peñalara, in the north of the Community of Madrid.

Our expert guide here was Raúl Revuelta, who explained the history of this area.

The valley is important for the region of Madrid as its main source of drinking water. Peñalara was occupied by an ailing skiing resort, due to misplanning, until it was declared a natural park by the government and restoration started. We saw some of the restoration measures in the area itself, while hiking to Laguna Chica.

Natural park Peñalara, view from Laguna Chica

The sunny weather and the great views made that everybody enjoyed the day very much.

Last week, students and professors from the Master in Global Environmental Change went on an excursion to Picos de Europa, in the north of Spain. This is one of the most remarkable National Parks of Spain, with dramatically sculpted mountain landscapes, and a very interesting area to study the effects of global socio-economic and environmental changes on biodiversity and land use. What is unique about the Park is that several villages are located within its boundaries. The interaction between people and landscapes is crucial to conservation in Picos.

Diego Martin of The Bearded Vulture Foundation explains the challenges of ecosystem conservation in Picos de Europa

Land use in Picos de Europa has undergone rapid change over the last decades. Traditionally, people lived from sheep and goat holding. In the summer, shepherds would bring their animals to the summer pastures. Cheese production converted perishable milk into a storable product that could be eaten in winter, or sold.

In recent years, however, people have massively shifted from goats and sheep to cows, encouraged by European Union subsidies. Others have abandoned agriculture altogether. The remaining shepherds are struggling to keep their business going. As livestock grazes less, some pastures are slowly overtaken by young forests. This isn’t necessarily good news for biodiversity, though. Some species depend on human activities for their survival.

The Bearded Vulture is a case in point. This species feeds exclusively on the bones of sheeps and goats. As sheep and goat farming disappeared from the area, so did the Bearded Vulture, which became extinct in the 1960s in Picos de Europa. The Bearded Vulture Foundation, which we visited on the second day of the excursion, is working on the conservation of biodiversity in the region. This organization recently reintroduced the species to the area. To ensure that the vultures can find food, the Foundation started a project to support sheep farming. It connected local shepherds to restaurants in the area, to supply them with lamb meat. A local brand was created to add value to this product. This is a very interesting example of a project that combines environmental sustainability and local development.

The director of the park talked to us about the challenges of the administration to manage this park. The park deals with more than a million visitors per year, local, regional, and national authorities, villages within the park, and very complicated logistics due to the long distances of the mountain roads, which are frequently covered by snow. Professor Patricia Mateo demonstrated ecological field techniques, especially the monitoring of vultures. We got an impression of the challenges of scientific field work and biodiversity monitoring in a mountainous region. Obviously we did not forget to sample some of the excellent cheeses and ciders from the region.