Barcelona's Green Belt is undeveloped or agricultural land surrounding the urban
areas where development is heavily restricted by law. The purpose is to protect
natural environments and wildlife, improve air quality, ensure that urban
dwellers have access to countryside and protect the character of rural
communities which might otherwise be absorbed by expanding suburbs and urban sprawl. Twelve Natural
Parks have been established in the region and protected Green Corridors
connect these together in a network that enables the free movement of species
between them thus helping to conserve biological diversity.
In Catalonia, the first legal protection of a natural area
dates back to 1928, when the Association of Catalonia promoted a law to protect
the Montseny massif. However, it was not until the second half of the 20th
century that a public policy of protecting natural areas was promoted by
Barcelona Provincial Council (Diputación de Barcelona), mainly based on shared
management between the municipal areas and with the participation of the
inhabitants and users of the areas.
The 1963 General Plan proposed the establishment of 14 natural areas but it was
not until 1972 that the policy to protect natural areas became effective and the
Llei del Sòl (Law governing Land Use) led to the creation of six parks in 1975.
In the mid-1990s, the Green Ring (L’Anella Verda) project
proposed a system of natural areas based on the connection of forests,
agricultural areas and natural areas, and led to the creation of both new Parks
and the interconnection between the new and existing ones. The aim was to
increase the level of the environmental and landscape quality of the entire
territory. As a result, the Barcelona Provincial Council and several Town
Councils constituted six consortia, that are today the managers of twelve
natural areas: Montseny, Sant Llorenç del Munt i l’Obac, Garraf,
Montnegre-Corredor, Montesquiu, Olèrdola, Serralada de Marina, Serralada
Litoral, Parc del Foix, Guilleries Savassona, Parc Agrari del Baix Llobregat and
Collserola.
Laws
governing the creation and status of the Green Belt
National Parks and Protected Spaces are created under the state
Ley de Espacios Protegidos 1975. Under the 1977 Ley de Caz
(Hunting Law) the following types of status may be determined:
Sitios Naturales de Interes Nacional (National Places of
Interest)
The Catalonia Llei de Espais Protegits
1985 establishes the difference between National Parks and Natural Parks. This
law declares the Natural Parks and National Reserves may be created by the
Catalan Government (Generalitat) and exist and function entirely separately from
the National Parks, created by the state. The law also decrees that the
Generalitat may be the owner of the land or that local groups may promote
actions to give protection to nature and the management then becomes the
responsibility of the promoter.
The PEIN Plan (1992) establishes new Natural Parks and selects
a number of other natural areas that link the Parks together to form a Green
Ring around Barcelona. The Plan protects biological corridors connecting the
twelve most important natural areas thus contributing to the preservation of
wildlife diversity.
The 12 Natural Parks
that anchor Barcelona's Green Ring network
