LINES OF ACTION

1. TERRITORY CUSTODY

We believe that custodian responsibility for a territory means listening to its multiple voices: local knowledge, the experiences of those who live there, and the different ways of understanding nature. That is why each territory custody agreement we sign is more than a conservation commitment: it is an alliance based on dialogue, shared responsibility, and the integration of past and present knowledge and relationships between people and nature. These agreements reflect our way of working and our purpose: to promote a more humane, effective, and socially and culturally connected form of environmental management.

In July 2025, AeHA signed a Territory Custody agreement at the La Duquesa estate, in the Peripheral Protection Zone of the Tablas de Daimiel National Park (Ciudad Real, Castilla-La Mancha).

2. PROTECTED NATURAL AREAS

Protected Natural Areas are priority action territories, where conservation is inseparably linked to the realities of rural areas, deeply affected by depopulation and repopulation processes. In some areas, population decline should not legitimise conservation approaches based solely on expert knowledge, which render local knowledge and historical practices that have shaped these landscapes invisible.
Our projects begin with fieldwork, alongside rural populations, managers, and technical teams, to understand how these territories are lived and managed in a context of profound change. From the perspective of environmental humanities, we promote initiatives of mediation, socio-historical analysis, and participatory processes that recognise multiple knowledge systems, strengthen territorial bonds, and contribute to socially rooted, fair, and long-term sustainable forms of conservation.

2. WORD TAPESTRY

Proverbs, sayings, folk songs, and everyday expressions preserve an essential part of rural populations’ wisdom. Various initiatives have collected these “tapestries of words” in territories where the relationship between people and the environment has historically been intense, as in many Biosphere Reserves. However, these collections are often fixed as archives of the past, losing their connection to lived territories.
Beyond preservation, we propose activating this intangible heritage and showing how accumulated knowledge — layer upon layer, like a tapestry — remains present today in practices, discourses, and the relationships rural populations maintain with their environment. Oral traditions, toponymy, and ways of naming rivers, mountains, or springs reflect territorial conceptions passed down through generations and reveal an intimate, situated relationship with the environment, even when referring to practices that have disappeared.
Making this material coherent, allowing it to dialogue, and engaging both those who maintain links with rural life and those who have moved away, enables the tapestry of words to serve as a tool for collective reflection. Not to foster nostalgia, but to recognise that this knowledge is alive and continues to shape how we inhabit and understand territories.