An impulse for Biodiversity and Rewilding in the Faia Brava Reserve

Transumância e Natureza – Associação (ATN) is a non-governmental, non-profit organization for the environment, created in 2000 in Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, district of Guarda. Our mission is to preserve, enhance, know and disseminate the natural heritage of the Northeast of Portugal, through the management and protection of natural areas.

The creation of ATN had the objective to support the implementation of a conservation project for the Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus) and Bonelli’s Eagle (Aquila fasciata), in the Northeast region of Portugal.

From 2000 to 2003, the strategy developed by ATN in the North East of Portugal focused on 3 sets of actions:

1. The acquisition of important land for birds;
2. A supplementary feeding program: repopulation of dovecotes and feeding ground for scavenger birds;
3. Environmental awareness actions aimed at the local population.

During this period, ATN acquired land in 3 important locations for the 2 species of birds of prey, covering approximately 67 ha, namely in the Côa Valley SPA (Natura 2000 Network) and in the Douro International Natural Park. As of 2003, these lands became ATN’s main intervention zone – the Faia Brava Reserve.

In 2008, the Faia Brava Reserve included around 600 ha, which allowed ATN to assume long-term objectives for the area, having developed a 10-year management plan. This plan made it possible to structure conservation solutions and actions, oriented towards the restoration and ecological valuation of properties with special emphasis on the conservation of avifauna. The plan was published and started in 2009, having subsequently given rise to a proposal to classify the reserve as a Private Protected Area, a process that ended successfully in 2010.

In 2021, ATN manages a total continuous area of ​​1000 ha in Faia Brava which includes a 5 km nesting zone for rupicolous birds in the Côa Valley SPA as well as neighboring areas of feeding these birds. Additionally, ATN manages, in partnership with 40 other owners, a forest area of ​​2600 ha, including part of the largest cork oak patch in the Guarda district – Algodres/Vale de Afonsinho Forest Intervention Zone.

Over the past 21 years, in the Faia Brava Reserve, ATN has been testing and consolidating a methodology for acting in nature conservation, which we believe can be successfully replicated in other natural areas. ATN considers that it is essential to prepare a conservation strategy for the association that allows:

1. Plan a sustained and sustainable intervention in this expanded territory;
2. Define priority natural values;
3. Identify threats, solutions, objectives and typical actions for each species or biotope;
4. Create and manage a network of priority natural areas within this territory.