Index Anillo Verde de Vitoria-Gasteiz

There is no doubt that the Green Belt, with its great natural beauty and landscape, situated on the very edge of the city, is an ideal space for the inhabitants of the city to pursue leisure activities and, at the same time, increase their awareness of this serious problems faced by the natural world. For this reason, since the beginning, one of the main priorities of the Green Belt has been to pay special attention to the social aspects of the project and to prepare a space for citizens to pursue activities of all kinds: leisure, sport, education and training activities, etc.

In order to facilitate the use of the Green Belt by the public, these parks have been equipped with appropriate signposting and an extensive network of itineraries has been created. Areas for sitting and resting have been established, and the parks have been provided with a wide range of environmental facilities for the reception and information of visitors as well as providing support for the large number of educational and training activities available to visitors to the Green Belt.

Management of public use

When defining the most appropriate management strategy for the Green Belt, it is necessary to take into consideration that periurban parks have a dual relationship with their visitors. Excessive use of more vulnerable areas should be avoided, therefore. However, at the same time, an influx of visitors is the best way of avoiding aggressive use of the environment, such as illegal dumping of waste and other materials.

In the management of public use, the underlying idea is to make the conservation of natural values effectively compatible with the influx of people and the public use of the space. In this sense, the Belt has been designed to provide each space with the necessary infrastructures to encourage its use by the public but, at the same time, the aim has been to restrict such use in especially sensitive areas.

The network of tracks, which are out of bounds for motorised vehicles (except those expressly authorised), is of special interest in this regard. The itineraries and sitting areas for visitors have been placed as far away as possible from more sensitive areas. In one case, it was decided to restrict access from visitors to one of the areas in the park, specifically a 70-hectare area of the Arcaute lake in Salburua, as this was considered incompatible with the conservation of the natural values of this area.

The task of controlling the frequenting and use of the Green Belt by the public is performed by a park ranger service, which is also responsible for monitoring the ecological and landscape development of the different spaces. All this is, without doubt, of great use in the technical management of the Belt.

In addition to the park ranger service, the work of educating and informing the public about the Green Belt is carried out through a wide range of different channels and supports, such as the media, Internet, publications and on-site information available in the parks.

Environmental education

Every year, a wide-ranging programme of educational and training activities designed for schoolchildren and the general public is developed in order to provide information on the Parks in the Green Belt and to make people aware of the need for its conservation. In order to develop these activities, there is a wide range of environmental equipment available and the creation of two new infra structures is planned. a Botanic Garden in Olarizu and a Nature Interpretation Centre in Salburua.

Some details:

• Today, there are more than 47 km of pedestrian and bicycle itineraries throughout the Green Belt
• In the year 2006 and the Green Belt was visited by more than 615,000 members of the public
• 32.700 people took part in the educational and environmental awareness activities that took place during the year 2006 in the Green Belt

Links

• Activities for shoolchildren

• Activities for everyone

• Facilities of the Green Belt

• Researches