Born and bred in Madrid, my friends always thought of me as a total city girl until my career in Iberdrola led me into an environmental role. That was what sparked my interest in learning more about the relationship – sometimes positive and other times not so much – between mankind and the environment.
It is obvious that human activity, and in particular industrial activity, has an impact on the environment. Iberdrola is very aware of this impact and focuses its efforts on carrying out initiatives to reduce the effects its facilities have on their surroundings.Image may be NSFW.
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The Fundación Iberdrola also does its share by setting up projects to promote biodiversity. I am proud to have been in charge of coordinating these projects since I joined the foundation 4 years ago.
Coinciding with World Migratory Bird Day (11th of May), I would like to talk to you all about some of the projects that we are involved in. For example, the MIGRA (bird migration) project launched by the Spanish Ornithological Society (SEO) in 2011 with funding from the Fundación Iberdrola, aims to learn more about migratory routes, resting areas along the route, overwintering areas, which species only perform dispersive movements and which are totally sedentary, etc.. It employs the latest GPS satellite emitter and geolocation technologies to gather the necessary data.
This vast amount of information is available free of charge and in real time on the website www.migraciondeaves.org. I would recommend that you all visit this web page, which now contains data on 142 banded specimens with a total of 228,000 uploaded locations.
However, the Fundación Iberdrola also collaborates with other institutions, such as the Regional Government of Madrid, with which we are running schemes to improve the imperial eagle and black stork populations. Another project is underway with the Fundación Aquila, with the miraculous birth of the first imperial eagle in captivity as its main achievement so far. Mention should also be made of the LIFE+ project devoted to the Cantabrian capercaillie. This is a case of public-private cooperation, coordinated by the Fundación Biodiversidad with the participation of various autonomous regions, SEO and funding from the Fundación Iberdrola from the outset.
As part of these projects, I had the opportunity to participate in various banding operations. It is hard to express how moving it is to come up close to a booted eagle, a wonderful blue roller or a black stork chick and put the little “rucksack” with the GPS transmitter on their back. These devices are attached very carefully and delicately so that the bird isn’t bothered by it and so that they fall off by themselves after a certain period of time has elapsed. These transmitters are evolving very fast. The ones we attached to the rollers weighed less than five grams, which allowed us to band this species for the first time ever in the world.
This emotion is transformed into joy – or surprise, I’m not sure how to describe it – when we hold the birds in our hands for a few seconds before giving them back their freedom, equipped with the “spy” device that will tell us where they are at all times. I confess that these experiences have taught me to understand and appreciate the beauty and complexity of our environment.Image may be NSFW.
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These schemes are supported by numerous volunteers who give up their time to carry out various tasks that enable the projects to succeed. I have also discovered that many of our colleagues at Iberdrola are bird enthusiasts and that some of you also take part as volunteers.
The results of these projects provide information that is very valuable and useful for learning more about the birds that share the environment with our infrastructure. That is why, in the current context of limited resources, my reflection on this World Migratory Bird Day is none other than to urge all citizens, companies and institutions to get actively involved and come together to launch projects so that the uniqueness of our bird fauna is leveraged to contribute value and promote local development.
