Restoring Gredos

About the project

“At first I struggled to identify the scientific principles that inform rewilding. To formulate principles you must know what outcome you are trying to archieve. But rewilding, unlike conservation, has no fixed objective: […] The process is the outcome.”

George Monbiot, FERAL (2013)

SILVESTRA is a non-profit association, currently being established, created with the aim of restoring the ecological processes that shaped this land. Our main mission is to encourage, following the decline of extensive livestock farming, the return of more autonomous dynamics—such as herbivory, fire, and natural regeneration—capable of preserving the character of the mountain savanna. In doing so, we hope to safeguard an exceptional cultural and natural landscape, shaped by thousands of years of interaction between human communities, large herbivores, and the dynamics of nature itself.

We aim to advise on and promote a form of landscape management in the Sierra de Gredos that gives greater prominence to natural processes, while always being grounded in social consensus, scientific knowledge, and direct benefits for local communities. Our goal is not to impose a form of nature alien to the territory, but to work with local people to build a management model that combines conservation, identity, and new opportunities for the future.

In the short term, we want to focus our efforts on a core area located where the municipality of Candeleda meets the Sierra de Gredos Regional Park. In the medium and long term, we hope that the experience, knowledge, and actions developed in this area can make a positive contribution to the management and conservation of the park as a whole within the province of Ávila.