Our ISEP
conference just took place in Madrid, so it seems only appropriate
to profile one of our members from the region. Having participated in the
INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship programme in 2008, Jordi Pietx has combined his
entrepreneurial spirit with his lifelong passion for the environment. In 2003,
Jordi founded Xarxa de Custòdia del Territori (XCT), a land stewardship
programme in Spain.
XCT has focused on
shifting the responsibility for land stewardship from the hands of big
landowners and government to local communities by giving groups and
organisations the opportunity to care for and protect their land. “XCT works to
engage people in nature conservation. Land stewardship agreements approach
public and private conservation organisations, landowners and farmers to work
together for nature in the long term,” explains Jordi. “As a network and
umbrella organisation we provide services to everyone from landowners, farmers
and NGO’s to volunteers, municipalities, governments and corporations. We help
with the legal development, provide training and technical advice and help
promote communication and networking across these various stakeholders.”
Although
public intervention is fundamental to protect the land and its biodiversity
from threats, governments do not have the financial or political capacity to manage
nature conservation alone, particularly when land is privately owned and
divided into small properties. In the
region of Catalonia, 80 per cent of rural lands are privately owned and highly
fragmented and 75 per cent of these lands are divided in properties less than
25 hectares. “In this context, the government is limited to creating protected
areas or imposing legal restrictions on how land owners can use their
property,” says Jordi. “Without the participation and involvement from landowners
it is impossible to effectively protect and nurture the land that holds
important resources. The Land Stewardship Network provides effective methods
and associated services to achieve this.”
From a financial perspective, XCT uses a conventional
non-profit model where donors, both public and private along with a network of
160 member organisations cover the costs of services delivered to areas of natural
interest, their managers (landowners, farmers or others) and the land
stewardship organisations and municipalities involved in their agreements. XCT
also uses a triple-balance model as well, where social and special
environmental benefits are balanced with a direct cost-benefit analysis. “In
this sense, by creatively using laws already in place, XCT has ensured the
legal effect of the voluntary agreements that are being made amongst those
involved in the processes of land stewardship,” explains Jordi. For these
efforts to be perpetuated, XCT engages across different levels of the
government when they are creating new laws and legislative tools that allow the
participation of stakeholders like citizen groups and organizations in
environmental protection.
As a result, XCT has persuaded a series of local and
regional government agencies to join the network and take part in this
transformation as a working partner. With the aim of creating a strong platform
that will work at a national level, XCT has been preparing new proposals in
order to promote local and permanent stewardship and make it part of their
established plans for protecting the environment. This includes providing fiscal
incentives, quality seals, tourism opportunities and other benefits. This
long-term vision combines land stewardship with a new bottom-up approach of
protecting more land and getting more citizens directly involved in caring for
their territory in a sustainable way.
As the organization grows, XCT has introduced land
stewardship concepts and mechanisms that are new to Spain in order to empower
local people to protect and care for their land. “We’ve created a large organisational
network that continues to grow and disseminate new and simple tools to engage
civil society more widely,” explains Jordi. “We’re also working with the
Government Administration and law-makers to promote creative interpretations of
the current legal framework which will allow new groups, such as small scale
land owners and civil society organisations to participate in land
conservation. These relationships are a key long-term factor in developing new
laws that protect biodiversity from environmental dangers.”
However scaling XCT has not been without its
challenges. “This is a project based on people and their capacity to partner
and is strongly influenced by cultural aspects. Growing the project throughout
Spain and Europe is a complex task that involves developing legislation and incentive
models for stewardship in legal frameworks where they currently do not exist,”
says Jordi. That being said, XCT has reached a number of major milestones
including the establishment of the Land
Stewardship Development Commission with the Government of Catalonia, which
is a commitment by the Department of Land & Sustainability of the
Government of Catalonia to support the promotion and consolidation of the
activity of land stewardship organisations. In addition XCT has created a
citizen web portal for land stewardship (www.viulaterra.cat), and develop strategy for strategy for
strengthening and capacity building of land stewardship organisations, in which
32 organisations are currently taking part.
So what’s next for XCT? “Right now we’re
focused on how the European financial crisis is impacting our work,” admits
Jordi. “We are currently trying to redesign our actual donor-receiver business
model so that it is a more effective independent and direct model.” At the same
time, XCT is implementing social-environmental entrepreneurship and social
green economy approaches to individual land stewardship initiatives including
nature friendly food markets and ecotourism.
“We believe that interest in land stewardship often
develops from a sense of belonging to a given territory,” says Jordi. “As a
result, XCT drives its replication strategy from a very local base. Its vision
is a federation of regional networks that reaches across Spain and has strong
links with others across Europe and around the Globe.”
For further information on XCT and their work please visit http://www.xct.cat. To find examples and case studies please
visit www.landstewardship.eu for case studies. By April 2013 a new European
manual on stewardship (available on the website) will provide a wide range of
case studies as well.
