Public entities and administrations

Under the umbrella of a framework agreement, the Department of Environment, Housing and Land Management of the Junta de Castilla y León and the Brown Bear Foundation (FOP) maintain a permanent collaboration scenario to develop actions and projects that include monitoring of the bear population within the autonomous territorial scope, conservation of the species and its habitat, research and environmental education.

The exhibition “En Zona Oso” is also part of this area of ​​collaboration. It is a permanent exhibition housed in the Casa del Parque Natural Montaña Palentina, owned by the Junta, and to which the FOP has contributed by providing some of the most important exhibition elements. The Casa del Parque is located in the town of Cervera de Pisuerga, Palencia. The brown bear is the guiding thread for learning about the values ​​of this rich natural space, which belongs to the European network of protected areas Red Natura 2000.

Currently, the Natural Heritage Foundation of Castilla y León, dependent on the Regional Government, is a partner in LIFE Bears with a Future, coordinated by the FOP, within the framework of which it develops forestry and silvicultural actions, and environmental education activities.

A century-old chestnut tree in a Natura 2000 network area

The Department of Rural Environment and Territorial Cohesion of the Principality of Asturias and the Brown Bear Foundation (FOP) collaborate on an ongoing basis through a framework agreement whose objective is the conservation of the Cantabrian brown bear and its habitat in the Principality of Asturias.

• The Ministry provides financial support to the FOP in its monitoring of the species and in the awareness-raising actions carried out at the “Somiedo and the Bear” Interpretation Centre, located in the town of Pola de Somiedo, within the Natural Park.

Exterior y entrada del Centro de Interpretación «Somiedo y el Oso» en el Parque Natural de Somiedo

Acciones de sensibilización en el Centro de Interpretación «Somiedo y el Oso»

• Also within the objectives of this collaboration framework, the FOP participates in the “ Brown Bear Tagging Program in Asturias 2021-2023 (PMOPPA2023) ”, coordinated by the Principality of Asturias and in which the Joint Institute for Biodiversity Research (CSIC-University of Oviedo-Principality of Asturias) and the Bear Foundation of Asturias also participate.

• Another important line of support from the Principality is its participation in the LIFE Bears with a Future project coordinated by the FOP, which will run until 2025 throughout the species’ distribution area in the Cantabrian Mountains. In addition to a financial contribution, the Ministry of Rural Environment and Territorial Cohesion is making a very significant contribution with the production of more than 15,000 chestnut trees grafted with local varieties in the La Mata Forest Nursery, with no financial cost associated with the project.

From left to right: Pedro Álvarez, from the University of Oviedo, David Villar, Director General of Natural Resources and Rural Planning of the Principality of Asturias and Fernando Ballesteros, from the Brown Bear Foundation, reviewing characteristics of seedling production at the La Mata Forest Nursery (Grado, Asturias).

The Brown Bear Foundation (FOP), together with other nature conservation NGOs, maintains a permanent collaboration scenario with the Ministry of Rural Development, Livestock, Fisheries, Food and Environment of the Government of Cantabria, through a protocol signed in 2020, and within whose framework different actions are included, aimed at improving the conservation of the Cantabrian bear and its habitat, as well as its knowledge and social assessment.

Some of these activities are carried out through the Centre for Environmental Research (CIMA). We also participate with CIMA in the Environmental Education and Volunteering Programme in Cantabria (PROVOCA) , thanks to which dozens of volunteers carry out important work in the fruit tree plantations for the bear organised by the FOP in this autonomous community.

Furthermore, within the framework of an agreement with the Cantabrian Regional Society for Tourism Promotion, CANTUR SA, attached to the Ministry of Industry, Tourism, Innovation, Transport and Trade, applied research actions have been developed on management with captive bears in the Cabárceno Nature Park. The Bear House in the Cabárceno Nature Park, inaugurated in October 2022, is also a result of this agreement.

In 2022, the FOP was the beneficiary of three grants from the Cantabrian Employment Service, co-financed by the European Social Fund, aimed at promoting permanent employment in the context of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (Decree 57/2021, of June 24).

The Brown Bear Foundation participates in the Scientific Ecotourism Experiences  in Spain (EECE) project, approved by the Secretary of State for Tourism within the framework of the “Tourism Experiences Spain” program (order ICT/1524/2021, of December 30; Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism.

The Scientific Ecotourism Experiences form a pioneering network in the world, made up of 6 private non-profit foundations in the field of conservation and 16 protected natural areas in Spain. The ecotourism experiences make known, through those who carry them out, the scientific programs associated with each species and their habitats: brown bear, Iberian lynx, bearded vulture, Iberian imperial eagle, black vulture… They also contribute to their conservation.

Thanks to the important support of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) and its dependent entities: Biodiversity Foundation and Autonomous National Parks Agency, the Brown Bear Foundation (FOP) can carry out initiatives ranging from the field of applied research, the execution of European LIFE projects or awareness campaigns, among other actions.

• In the field of applied conservation research, which is one of the basic lines of the Strategy for the conservation of the brown bear in the Cantabrian Mountains (approved in 1999 and updated in 2019), the FOP receives funding from MITECO through grants for third sector entities or non-governmental organizations that carry out activities of general interest considered to be of social interest in the field of scientific and technical research of an environmental nature. The projects that have been developed in the last call can be consulted in the FOP’s URSUS Program.

FOP technician collecting genetic samples

• The Biodiversity Foundation (FB) has supported various LIFE projects coordinated by FOP, approved and co-financed by the European Union, such as the LIFE Bears with Future project, which was carried out between October 2020 and March 2025, and currently the LIFE Human Bear Coex project “Prevention and mitigation of conflicts in villages and their surroundings to favour coexistence between humans and bears in the higher bear density municipalities of the Cantabrian Mountains (Spain)”.

In addition, the FOP has developed projects that have been selected in the FB grant lines. Specifically, within the Call for grants from the Biodiversity Foundation FSP, under a competitive regime, for the evaluation of Spanish terrestrial biodiversity 2020 (framed in the Terrestrial Biodiversity line of action of the 2020 Action Plan of the Biodiversity Foundation). The last one ended in May 2022: «Establishment of an early warning system to detect brown bear conservation problems caused by leisure and sporting activities in the Montaña Palentina Natural Park (Palencia), the Alt Pirineu Natural Park and the Aigüestortes and Estany de Sant Maurici National Park (Lleida).»

LIFE Bears with a Future Project: Follow-up visit to the forest nursery in La Mata, Asturias

• The National Parks Autonomous Agency (OAPN) and FOP-Brown Bear Foundation work together since 2021 to improve knowloedge and awareness about the brown bear and other species that are present in the National Parks that host a part of its population. Within 2025 an information campaign has been carried out aimed at the information and visitor reception centres of the Picos de Europa National Park (in the Cantabrian Mountains) and in the Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park (in the Pyrenees mountain range), as well as tourist establishments located within the Parks and in their surrounding areas of influence. In addition, information and awareness‑raising activities have been carried out for hikers directly along the routes in both territories, intended to prevent incidents with bears.

Information and awareness‑raising campaign in the Picos de Europa National Park.

In 2022, the FOP received three grants from the Cantabrian Employment Service, co-financed by the European Social Fund, aimed at promoting permanent employment in the context of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (Decree 57/2021, of June 24).

The contracts of three FOP employees are affected by the transformation of temporary contracts into permanent ones: the communications technician (€4,000), the forestry engineering technician (€3,000) and the person responsible for accounting and labour management (€2,500), who mainly work at the central office in Santander.

LIFE es el principal instrumento financiero de la Unión Europea de apoyo a las políticas comunitarias en materia de medio ambiente y conservación de la biodiversidad. Sin el apoyo LIFE difícilmente se habría logrado rescatar al oso pardo del peligro crítico de extinción en el que se encontraba hace 25 años. La FOP ha coordinado o participado en 12 proyectos LIFE, y actualmente coordina el proyecto LIFE Osos con Futuro.

Técnico de campo del proyecto LIFE Osos con Futuro recogiendo semillas de arraclán (Frangula alnus)