PECT Ebrebiosfera

PECT EbreBiosfera is the acronym for the Territorial Specialization and Competitiveness Project of the Terres de l'Ebre Biosphere Reserve, focused on promoting Leading Sectors with endogenous potential through the intensive use of ICT and the Transfer of knowledge and Innovation.

The PECT EbreBiosfera is a project co-financed 50% by European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) of the European Union, within the framework of the ERDF operational program of Catalonia 2014-2020.

The entities participating in the PECT EbreBiosfera are the following:

Coordination: Consell Comarcal del Baix Ebre.
Beneficiary partners: Consorci de Polítiques Ambientals de les Terres de l'Ebre (COPATE), Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Fundació Agroterritori, CENFIM, Consell Comarcal del Baix Ebre, Ajuntament d'Amposta.
Non-beneficiary partners: Consell Comarcal del Montsià, Consell Comarcal de la Terra Alta y Consell Comarcal de la Ribera d'Ebre.

Logos dels organismes que participen en el PECT

In the following graph we show the operations of the PECT EbreBiosfera led by the beneficiary partners:

 

Esquema de les operacions que organitza el PECT

 

Within the PECT EbreBiosfera, the following operations are led by COPATE:

Operation 2.1. Rural Symbiosis

This operation deploys and applies a set of innovative tools aimed at rural development, job creation and population fixation in rural municipalities within the scope of the Reserve. In this sense, it wants to establish the bases of an agricultural model based on collaboration between farmers, cooperatives and farms, providing new functions to the existing cooperative fabric by promoting the collaborative economy in an agricultural sector based on family farms and promoting the strengthening of agricultural cooperativism, facilitating, with the use of ICT, its transition towards cooperativism 2.0. and innovation.

The operation will allow the creation of spaces for cooperation at individual and collective level that with the use of ICT and a strong R+D+I component will harmonize the use of scarce resources, create synergies between farms and different activities (livestock, biomass, ...) and will provide the sector with sufficient capacity for anticipation, adaptation and resilience to withstand the stresses created by global markets.

The operation will be based on the creation of a Land Bank and the Agrarian Services Bank aimed at facilitating the sector's access to information that enables it to guarantee the continuity of the exploitations and which will be important in promoting the precision agriculture in the territory. These instruments will be tested on different problems present in the agrarian space of Terres de l'Ebre with the collaboration of the territorial cooperative fabric, the municipalities and supra-municipal entities and with other local entities that the users will be able to manage and operate the platforms once the PECT.

This operation consists of 2 actions:

Action 2.1.1: Land Bank.
Action 2.1.2: Bank of Agrarian Resources.

Operation 2.2. Phyto-derivatives: Innovation and Agroforestry Value Chain

Forest (and agricultural) biomass constitutes a valuable renewable and endogenous energy resource, which reduces external energy dependence and creates jobs in the same territory. We also found that the lack of forest management increases the amount and density of biomass in forests, which together with the effects of climate change, increase the chances of forest fires.

The use of biomass for energy purposes would make it possible to give economic viability to forestry activity, would generate employment in the primary sector, and would make it possible to manage a very significant part of the highly vulnerable territory in the face of increased risks associated with change. climate.

This operation proposes defining a new value chain in the agroforestry sector that allows the creation of new business opportunities through an innovative endogenous resource management model and the introduction of new technologies aimed at bioenergy production. The operation will activate and consolidate bioenergy as an emerging sector and will promote employment at the local level.

The operation is facilitated, in Terres de l'Ebre, by the presence of a large forest area under municipal ownership and a dense agricultural cooperative fabric that allows the introduction of management models based on public-private collaboration. However, the proposed value chain has a high potential for replication in other areas of the country.

In this context, forestry cooperativism will be promoted to coordinate it with an emerging business sector in the territory, identifying new technological solutions, based on biorefining, aimed at obtaining new phyto-derivatives that provide added value and expand the demand for bioenergy from proximity. An important part of the operation will focus on the Terra Alta region, where municipalities, the County Council and COPATE have been promoting the agroforestry sector for years. The actions, therefore, will be aimed at defining new strategies for managing the territory and its forest resources based on enhancing the role of cooperatives in the creation of an agroforestry cluster that provides knowledge, fosters demand, provides logistics solutions and of innovation, bring together the sector and align all the actors involved in achieving common objectives oriented to the production of quality phyto-derivatives and proximity bioenergy.

This operation consists of 2 actions:

Action 2.2.1: Creation of a public-private agroforestry cluster
Action 2.2.2: Plan to promote the demand and supply of agroforestry biomass

Operation 2.3. Rural Smart Energy

The energy transition must be activated from many areas and at different scales. But like so many other environmental challenges, action at the local level is a priority.

This 2.3 "Rural Smart Energy" operation is aimed at laying the foundations for the energy transition in the area of ​​the Ebro Lands, a territory designated by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve for its natural and environmental assets and that, at the same time At the same time, it concentrates a very significant part of Catalonia's electricity generation, in terms of installed power.

The main objective is, therefore, to promote this know-how to promote the change of the current energy paradigm for another based on proximity renewables and the proactivity of consumers and local communities.

In this context, local administrations must become the main engine or driver of change in its initial phases. In order to achieve this, the experience of more than 10 years of the Agència local de l'Energia de Terres de l'Ebre is available. It has sufficient basic information to know the operation of the public demand of the territory and has intervened in most initiatives aimed at saving and energy efficiency in local administrations. It also has valuable information on other inputs that will be essential to overcome the proposed challenges.

This operation consists of three actions that simultaneously entail the execution of different actions. These actions are different but complementary ways of approaching the challenge of the energy transition:

Action 2.3.1: GIS-Energy Platform
Action 2.3.2: Energy Operator
Action 2.3.3: Energy & Water Cycle

[Ebrebiosfera Logo]