On the 29th of April Montis has re-signed an agreement with landowner “Junta de Freguesia de Valadares”, for the management of 3 ha of land in Valadares, São Pedro do Sul, Portugal. The new agreement has extended the timeline for 10 years. Considering that the previous agreement had the duration of 2 years, this is a great step towards a long-term management that will allow obtaining and consolidating results. The area is a steep hill that has burnt intensely in October 2016 during a wild forest fire. Management actions by Montis have been focusing on the control of invasive alien plant species. 

 

At the same time, Montis is also in a dialog with a private landowner from Valadaresto establish a new management agreement for 3 ha of privately owned land. Conversations have gone well so far, and the team has already visited the place twice to perform on-site surveys and start the discussion of a possible management plan for the area. 

Montis has been testing a few crowdsourcing tools that have been proven to be efficient so far. An academic volunteering programme has been developed and is taking place since October 2017, on a monthly basis. 6 editions have already been performed with university students from groups such as Vo.u, NEB AACand AEESAC, allowing to intervene over 10 ha within Natura 2000, planting over 1.500 trees, collecting over 60 kg of acorns and setting up over 40 nature-based devices for soil retention and improvement.

Very recently, on the 25th of April, the first volunteering action in Montemor-o-Novo, at Herdade do Freixo do Meio-site, has taken place. This site is being managed by Montis under a 10 year management protocol signed on the 06thof June 2017, already under the LIFE ELCN project.

Montis is organising an International Work Camp in June, from 16 to 22. Registration can be found here.

So far, under Pilot Action A6 – Crowdsourcing for private land conservation, the following results have been achieve by Montis:

• 2 new management protocols (1 signed and 1 re-signed and extended) 
• 1 new protocol currently under discussion
• Operation of a new external crowdsourcing tool for field conservation labour – academic volunteering program
• 1 cooperation protocol for specialized, pro bono, support on law counselling
• setting up of new tools to support financing of land conservation with private parties:
  • cooperation with MOSSY EARTH, allowing to deliver 7.000,00 €, through planting works (3.000 trees)
  • cooperation with EDPR, allowing to deliver 6.352,80 € euro, through planting 1000 trees and supporting management works on 2,00 ha.
• Developed 1 inquiry of internal MONTIS associates for internal crowdsourcing
• 4 volunteering activities resulting from Montis associates 
  • application to funding (national and EU funds);
  • technical advice for management, 
  • designing logos and other graphical elements for ongoing projects;
  • establishing the start of a long term collection of data from one of Montis managed sites, namely climate data and soil analysis.