Boletín de la RSEHN. Sección Geológica

En este artículo se describe el método de adquisición (inventario), análisis (evaluación) y diagnóstico de la información biogeomorfológica dirigida a la planificación de la conservación del patrimonio natural en el ANEI de las cuevas del Pendo-Peñajorao (Camargo). También se explica la elaboración de la normativa que procede de esa información. Se trata, por tanto, de un artículo eminentemente metodológico, aunque también se describe la aplicación de los resultados obtenidos. El inventario se basó en la clasificación, cartografía y descripción de unidades geomorfológicas y fisiográficas de vegetación desde una óptica orientada a la planificación de los espacios naturales. La evaluación se centró en una interpretación de dicha información en términos de capacidades dirigidas a fomentar o potenciar las cualidades naturales del territorio, así como sus limitaciones. Esta fase incluyó una valoración cuantitativa de la vegetación cartografiada en función de diferentes criterios ecológicos (naturalidad, endemicidad, rareza, fragilidad, vulnerabilidad, relictismo). La información que surgió de esa evaluación constituyó un diagnóstico, dirigido a orientar el proceso de planificación de la gestión para la conservación de los recursos naturales, cuyas directrices esenciales quedaron incorporadas a una proposición normativa.

The Spanish legal framework for natural protected areas entails regional government duties on natural resources planning and management. The protected areas are especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, of geodiversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources. In Cantabria, the legislative framework covering the protection of natural areas is the Nature Conservation Act 2006. In this sense one of the legal protection categories applied to regional Government of Cantabria-declared natural areas, when specifically proposed by local goverments, is Special Interest Area (Spanish: Área Natural de Especial Interés; acronym ANEI). This paper describes the method for the acquisition (inventory), analysis (evaluation) and diagnosis of biogeomorphic information aimed at the planning of the natural Heritage conservation of the protected areas of El Pendo and Peñajorao Caves, in the municipal district of Camargo – an example of Special Interest Area and UNESCO World Heritage Site (Cantabria province, Spain). The preparation of the regulations which derived from tt information is also explained. This is therefore a methodological paper, although the application of its results is also described. The inventory lied in the classification, mapping and description of biogeomorphic land units, always from a perspective of natural resources and protected areas planning. The evaluation was based in an interpretation of tt information in terms of capacities for promoting the natural cracteristics of the land or restrictions for land uses. This evaluation pse included an analysis to quantify bitat types (several ecological vegetation critetria were included: fragility, vulnerability, rarity, relictic cracter, naturalness and endemic cracter, represented in different layers). The information which came from tt evaluation constituted the diagnosis, aimed at the goals of the management orientation for the conservation of the natural resources

These guidelines were incorporated into the revised regulations. The procedure developed for the organization of the biogeomorphic information for the planning and management of El Pendo and Peñajorao caves system (about 10 km of surveyed passages) is innovative from a methodological point of view, and it seeks to correct the most common problems of this kind of reports of declaration of protected areas, such as: (a) the accumulation of a large quantity scarcely useful information for the planning and management purposes; (b) the very limited relationship between the information included at the inventory and tt included at the pses of evaluation, diagnosis and regulations. Additionally, the procedure can be seen as a methodological contribution, but the geomorphology and the vegetation-physiographic units of this area also constitute the basis for the understanding of the essential cracteristics of this karstic cavescontaining land.