Public Kick-Off Conference in Santiago de Compostella!
On Friday 30th June, Down to Earth lead partner, AGADER organised a public Kick-Off Conference to present the project to their regional stakeholders and discuss the challenges Galicia is faced with regards to sustainable rural development. The event increased the visibility of the project in Galicia and promoted interregional cooperation as a method supported by EU funding through Interreg Europe.
Following welcome words by Inés Santé Riveira, general director of AGADER, José González Vázquez, Galician regional minister of Rural Affairs, open the event with a keynote address highlighting the main challenges faced by Galicia with regards to rural abandonment, but also supporting an economic fabric that allows the agricultural sector to grow sustainably. José González pointed out the essential role of knowledge transfer and mutual learning experiences between the different European countries, recalling that what unites the Down to Earth partnership is "the interest in providing the rural areas of our respective countries with a future."
« We are all convinced our rural areas are strong and have strong potential »
A first panel session was moderated by Luisa Boquete Pumar, general secretary of AGADER, to shed light on the challenges linked with resilient rural areas. María Gafo Gómez-Zamalloa from the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) of the European Commission, presented the European context for sustainable rural development, including the new Common Agricultural Policy and the EU’s A long-term Vision for the Rural Areas. Alba Vilamor form the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) detailed the national context and the existing instruments that support rural areas in Spain. Antonio Rigueiro Rodríguez (professor at the University of Santiago de Compostella), Alberto Vázquez Sanmartin (deputy director of Demography and Conciliation at Xunta de Galicia) and Isaac Gomez Pineiro (Deputy Director General of Meteorology and Climate Change in Xunta de Galicia) then delved in more details into the specific challenges Galicia is facing: land ownership fragmentation, ageing population, disaster risk management.
Making Galician rural areas more dynamic is a complex issue, especially when we think of mobility and the demographic challenges, but rural areas are key for climate neutrality!
Following a presentation of the Down to Earth project by José Manuel Andrade Calvo, director of the Fundacion Juana de Vega, a second panel session featuring Down to Earth regional partners was moderated by Alfonso Ribas Álvarez, chief research and innovation officer of Fundacion Juana de Vega. Representatives from the 4 other regional organisations that compose the partnership (Municipality of Campobasso, MeteoRomania, Regionalverband Neckar-Alb , University of Patras, and BSC Kranj the Regional Development Agency of Gorenjska) presented challenges to sustainable rural development in their regions and the different innovative policy approaches they are implementing to address them, providing of first overview of the interregional learning that’s at the core of the Down to Earth partnership.
The Kick-Off Conference concluded with a lunch fostering networking between project partners and regional stakeholders and creating collaborative spaces among participants.