AGROECOLOGY AND FOOD POLICIES
entretantos aims to play a relevant role in the transition towards more sustainable and healthy food systems towards more participatory, agroecologically based models, and defending the right of everyone to a more sustainable and healthy diet. Thus, we work to promote alternative practices of production, transformation and distribution with an agroecological approach, including the necessary technical, social, political and economic mechanisms to extend these practices and further improve them.
We develope, among other projects, the Technical Secretariat of the Network of Municipalities for Agroecology -including projects such as the BCN Challenge, Liveseeding, AESOPforFood–, the implementation process of the Food Strategy in Valladolid and several projects for the territorialisation of the agri-food system in rural territories (Merindad Sangüesa-Pirineo and Prepirineo in Navarre, Montaña Palentina, La Vera in Extremadura and Sierra de Aracena, in Huelva, etc.).). In many of these projects, intensive work is being carried out to extend green public procurement of food.
We promote the GIASAT project, within the consortium that we have created with a group of allied entities, and we are working towards the inclusion of advice on short marketing channels in the advice systems at national level (EU4Advice Project).
We also develop innovative projects such as Píldora Verde, on experimental communication to develop symbolic contexts favourable to transitions towards sustainability in the agricultural sector.
EXTENSIVE LIVESTOCK FARMING AND PASTORALISM
entretantos carries out an important activity of support, defence and dynamisation of extensive livestock farming and pastoralism in Spain.
In the meantime, it acts as the technical and communications secretariat of the Platform for Extensive Livestock Farming and Pastoralism , a benchmark organisation in support of an activity whose strengths and differentiating elements in social, economic and employment terms, as well as the conservation of the landscape and biodiversity, have been repeatedly demonstrated and highlighted by the national and international scientific community.
In the same line of action, we promoted the creation and work of Ganaderas en Red, a very active group of mutual support and public defence of the work of this collective, made up of almost 200 women from all over Spain, all of them extensive livestock breeders and shepherds.
entretantos is a very active organisation in research and participatory action in this field. Every year, together with the PGEP, it organises and coordinates the ‘Territorios Pastoreados’ conference.
Among the projects in which we are involved are Life LiveAdapt, which completed its work in 2022, and the Naturaleza Pastoreada.
entretantos is also part of the International Group and the European Regional Group supporting and preparing the Declaration of 2026 as the International Year of Pastures and Rangelands. We also take part in events, meetings and seminars and maintain a strong network of contact and collaboration with other pastoralist organisations and nodes around the world.
COEXISTENCE OF THE WOLF WITH RURAL POPULATIONS
As a result of our work in the territory and after observing that the existing social conflict in relation to the wolf and extensive livestock farming was increasing, in 2016 a specific area of work was opened in the Foundation to address this socio environmental problem. We believe that through mediation initiatives, and with the support of social research processes, we can generate spaces of trust and respect between opposing actors and facilitate empathy that will help to resolve this social conflict and generate working models for other areas of environmental conflict.
As a result of this work, there is the Campo Grande Group, a group formed by representatives of the different positions and social agents relevant to the wolf conflict. This group has evolved, becoming the Campo Grande Observatory in 2020 as a space for reflection between all the sectors, representatives and experts who are members of the GCG in order to propose actions that integrate and analyse all these views on the news, events, new regulations or plans, etc. that fuel the conflict, and to propose alternatives based on dialogue and consensus both territorially and globally.
GEODIVERSITY
In 2015, the Entretantos Foundation established an agreement with ARGEOL (Association for the Geological Reserve of Las Loras) for the development of research, conservation, protection, improvement and enhancement of the natural heritage of the UNESCO World Geopark Las Loras. The declaration in May 2017 of the Loras UNESCO Global Geopark can be considered a direct result of ARGEOL’s work with the local population and the different administrations and agents of the territory, and also of this collaboration. Different initiatives have been developed over the last few years: geo-volunteering, educational projects, creation and consolidation of participation committees with the local population, etc.
The project has been developed with the collaboration and/or participation of the local population, who are beginning to take care of these places, to think of tools to value, protect and conserve them.
In addition, since 2018, with the launch of the scientific committee, work has been carried out on ways to strengthen and consolidate research, especially geological research.
GOVERNANCE OF THE COMMONS AND THE COMMONS
In Spain, the governance of protected areas local communities, one of the four governance models established by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), is not unknown to us. We have hundreds and hundreds of communal forests, neighbourhood forests, common lands, irrigation ditches, irrigation communities, fishing guilds and other traditional governance organisations that manage thousands of hectares of High Nature Value Areas (HNVPAs) and natural resources of great value for the conservation of biodiversity. In the search for and research of successful models of governance in terms of participation and participation, we have worked in this area in two ways: in relation to the current state of the communes, addressing their functioning, structure, conservation and uses and promoting netwoks, reflections and spaces for their conservation and strengthening, and another in relation to governance, taking as the axis of our work the following aspects
In 2020 our booklet ‘Gender, governance and commons through the eyes of women‘ was published, a first approach to the Participatory Action Research that we started in 2019, gathering the testimony and voice of women from different parts of the state about the state of these commons, their governance, their conservation, their challenges and potential. We continue working with groups of women communards and women linked to communal groups from other areas (research, technical work in communal groups, mayors…) both in the facilitation and operation of the groups themselves, and in the design and preparation of informative materials on what communal groups are, their validity, existence and potential at present…
On the other hand, we have maintained our participation and involvement as a partner in Iniciativa Comunales recognised by the ICCA Consortium as an entity that facilitates the location and registration of the Territories of Life of the Spanish state in its International Register. We have played an active role in the birth of the association and currently in the working group for the improvement and systematisation of the organisation’s governance.
SOCIAL PARTICIPATION AND PARTICIPATORY METHODOLOGIES
This area of work, also research-action, is articulated around another of the flagships of the Entretantos Foundation: the Escuelaboratorio. This is an annual space for reflection – in 2023 has celebrated its tenth edition – on participation and collective construction that meets once a year under the umbrella of a permanent seminar of the CENEAM (National Centre for Environmental Education).
In addittion, we have coordinated and taught some of the environmental education courses organised by the CENEAM within the framework of the Environmental Education Action Plan for Sustainability (PAEAS).
For some time now, we have been meeting and getting involved with different entities dedicated to research and continuous review of social participation. A few years ago we were part of the Forum for Participatory Methodologies. And now, we are part of the Network for Innovation in Participatory Processes (RIIEP), which organises an annual meeting dedicated to analysing and proposing innovations and methodological improvements in current processes of citizen and social participation.
We can say that this area is transversal to the rest of the Foundation’s areas and projects, because participation and collective construction work are key tools in all Entretantos projects. Thus, in this area, which is also dedicated to the development and communication of participatory methodologies, we include the holding of some events on participatory mechanisms for territorial management, training activities and the development of different mediation and social participation projects, as well as the creation of networks and joint projects with other entities motivated by the same concerns as Entretantos.