The Department of Open Government, Economic Promotion and Employment of the Murcia City Council is leading the project that will compile a bird inventory that will allow us to understand changes in species diversity, also analyzing the quality of their habitat.
Councilor Mercedes Bernabé reports that "the area chosen for the fieldwork is the area surrounding Conexión Sur, where the vacated space will undergo extensive revegetation and renaturalization, becoming a new urban green lung."
This initiative is part of the actions that the City Council is undertaking within GreenMe5, which seeks to improve urban environments through actions framed within five pillars: water, air, noise, green spaces and waste management.
Murcia City Council will conduct a study on bird presence in the city to understand changes in bird diversity based on the degree of urbanization in each area.
The initiative is part of the actions that the City Council's Department of Open Government, Economic Promotion, and Employment is developing within the European GreenMe5 project, which seeks to improve urban environments through actions focused on five pillars: water, air, noise, green spaces, and waste management.
For fieldwork, it has been deemed important to focus on highly urbanized areas, where the number of species is inevitably lower than that found in natural ecosystems, and where changes may also occur if species repopulate or become extinct.
That's why Councilor Mercedes Bernabé announced that "the area chosen for the GreenMe5 project study will be the area surrounding Conexión Sur, where the space freed up by the underground tunnel will be subject to extensive revegetation and renaturalization, becoming a new urban green lung and a connector for biodiversity in the city."
Fieldwork for the study of bird species in the area must be carried out in two different seasons and over at least two years to allow for comparison. Therefore, a total of four observations are planned: fall 2024, spring and fall 2025, and spring 2026.
For each observation, two ornithology specialists will conduct fieldwork and, through observation and listening, will create an inventory of the birds in the Conexión Sur area. Furthermore, for this type of study, citizen science processes are of vital importance, and these are monitored through official websites such as https://ebird.org and www.inaturalist.org , sites recognized by the European Commission for this type of research.
The first count is expected to establish a baseline, against which comparisons can be made in subsequent three studies to calculate the percentage change indicator for bird species required by the European Commission.
The Councilor for Open Government, Economic Development, and Employment explains that "to protect our biodiversity, we must first understand it well, and birds are a measure of the quality of cities." She adds that "this area of the Conexión Sur boulevard will connect the Green Path of the old railway line with Murcia Río, improving the environment and biodiversity of the area." The councilor also points out that "this action is part of Mayor Ballesta's government team's strategic project, Conexión Sur."
Green City Accord
In February 2021, the municipality of Murcia joined the Green City Accord, a movement made up of European cities committed to environmental conservation, becoming one of the first to do so. To this end, it pledged to undertake actions across five pillars (water, air, noise, waste management, and biodiversity) with the goal of improving environmental indicators.
With the aim of improving these indicators, the Murcia City Council, together with the European cities of Arezzo (Italy), Vilnius (Lithuania), Helsingborg (Switzerland), and Cieza (Spain), and led by the Federation of Municipalities of the Region of Murcia, joined forces in the GreenMe5 project.
As part of this project, Murcia City Council convened the Local Action Group last February, where contributions and suggestions from various groups and professionals were collected to improve these indicators. In the words of Mercedes Bernabé, "the participation of society at large in these types of actions is vital to involve them in the city's sustainable transition," while emphasizing that "Murcia is a city recognized by Europe, as demonstrated by the number of European projects on this topic that have been carried out and continue to be carried out by the City Council."
In addition, remember that the mailbox for submitting proposals and ideas for environmental improvements will remain open for the duration of the project, which can be accessed through https://www.estrategiamurcia.es/greenme5/#contacto.