The Rural Resilient Territory Forum held its main event on May 28 at the Cidade da Cultura de Galicia, bringing together 200 participants from the social, economic, institutional, political, and academic spheres around a shared proposal to move towards a more active, organized, and resilient rural Galicia.
The event also served to present the Alliance for a Resilient Rural Territory, an open collaboration network aimed at continuing the work carried out in recent months within the framework of the Forum and launching an initial action plan. The initiative, promoted by the Land Lab (Laboratorio do Territorio) and the Juana de Vega Foundation, is supported by the RIA Foundation, the Roberto Rivas Foundation, and the Professional Association of Journalists of Galicia, and builds on the prior work of more than 120 organizations that participated in the working groups launched since March.
LaboraTe’s participation in the Forum is closely aligned with its main lines of work in spatial planning, active land management, food systems linked with the territory, and generational renewal in agriculture. From this perspective, the Forum provided an opportunity to bring into public debate the need to plan agricultural, livestock, and forestry land uses in an integrated manner, improve coordination among planning, land mobilization, and governance instruments, and move towards territorial models capable of reducing land-use conflicts, preventing wildfires, and restoring productive, environmental, and social functions in rural Galicia. At the same time, discussions on generational renewal highlighted that attracting new people and projects into the sector is essential, and that this depends not only on start-up support schemes, but also on access to land, availability of housing, training, technical guidance, support networks, and the economic viability of initiatives.
This comprehensive approach—combining technical knowledge, territorial analysis, social participation, and institutional cooperation—forms part of the research-action framework that LaboraTe has been developing in recent years.
The creation of the Alliance now opens a new phase focused on action. The initial plan foresees the establishment of working groups on dialogue with public administrations, technical support for territorial initiatives, generational renewal in agriculture, agroforestry land-use planning, ecosystem services, and social communication. From LaboraTe’s perspective, this continuity represents an opportunity to further contribute knowledge, territorial analysis capacity, and participatory methodologies in support of a more vibrant, functional, and resilient rural Galicia.