Profile on Social Entreprise - Xarxa de Custòdia del Territori – XCT (Land Stewardship Network in Catalonia)

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.