The acquired land is located at the Secretari area, between the Arc and Xarquer valleys, in the municipality of Benimantell, although closer to the urban center of Sella, where it is accessed.

Specifically, it is located in the mountainous sector of the Aitana and Puig Campana massifs, where the highest altitudes in the province of Alicante are reached. The propierty is part of a large mountainous sector declared a Site of Community Interest (SCI “Aitana-Serrella-Puig Campana”), Special Bird Protection Area (“Montañas de la Marina” SPA) and Non-developable Land of Special Protection.

The plot is located in the final section of a small and narrow valley, next to the Goleró pass, a spectacular gorge that has served for centuries as a communication path between the Arc and Xarquer valleys.

In the almost 5 hectares that the purchased land has, which is between 550 m. and the 650 m. altitude, we find a wide variety of landscape units (cultivation terraces, rocky areas, ravines and shady forest) that generate environments differentiated by type of soil, depth, water retention capacity, solar exposure, etc. A multiplicity of environments with positive effects on biodiversity. Thus, in the floristic catalog of the plot there are species as diverse as the flowering ash, the holm oak, the mastic, the strawberry tree, the durillo, the palm heart, the cornicabra, the aladierno, the butcher’s broom, the juniper, etc. Likewise, it is worth noting the importance of the cultivation terraces, which occupy a large part of the farm, and other cultural assets, such as an old ditch, a historic path and a small country house reinforcing all this its landscape and cultural value. Most of the plot basically constitutes a large cultivation area structured in mountain terraces, with “dry” stone walls.

Mountain terraces are agricultural systems based on two objectives, maintaining and improving the cultivated soil and favoring the “harvesting” of scarce water resources. It is the traditional cultivation system most used in the Mediterranean mountains, especially in the Valencian Community, and especially in the Betic mountains of Alicante. This system has been neglected for decades due to its low economic profitability, which is endangering a cultural landscape that the European Union has recently defined as one of the most valuable in the entire Mediterranean.

Fundem has signed a custody agreement with Jose Antonio Larrosa Rocamora, lecturer at teh University of Alicante. The general objective of the agreement is conserving the terracing system. For this, two main lines of action are defined:

1. Recovery of the productive function; performing tasks related to the safeguarding of the terraces and the recovery and forestry and agricultural production.
2. Development of a cultural-social function: education, research and dissemination. It is a broad educational project, ranging from the teaching of dry stone landscape, to the transmission of knowledge about crops, the use of water, the production of forest species, the construction of dry stone walls, the recovery of traditional architecture, forestry tasks, etc.

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