What would it take to regenerate the whole Iberian Peninsula?

Reflections from the annual meeting of the Iberian Network for Regenerative Territories  

This was the question on everyone’s lips at a recent gathering of the Iberian Nework of Regenerative Territories (La Red Ibérica de Territorios Regenerativos), bringing together restoration leaders from across the Iberian Peninsula to advance the network’s collective goal of making the Iberian bioregion a global reference point for landscape restoration. 

A 4-day event held in Oskotz, Navarra, northern Spain, in mid-May, it provided a vital space for the Spanish land regeneration movement to come together, learn from each other’s work, and put collective ideas into practice in the year ahead. Here are the key insights from the meeting: 

Immense challenges demand collective action 

75% of the Iberian Peninsula is at risk of desertification. Temperatures have risen 1.5°C since the 19th century. Fires have increased by 30% over the last decade, and 30% of municipalities now have fewer than 5,000 inhabitants. This past year was a clear reminder of the increasingly urgent need to restore Spanish and Portuguese landscapes. Record-breaking wildfires, droughts and floods affected many of the network’s landscapes, with 170,000 hectares burnt in Spain this summer alone. 

Coming together this year, La Red’s different member landscapes reflected on the urgency of the challenge at hand and the need to act together to create real change. La Red was created to connect the people already restoring landscapes across Spain and Portugal. Rather than each territory working in isolation, La Red exists to share knowledge, combine resources, and influence policy on a larger scale.

A living butterfly sculpture created together 

The Efecto Mariposa initiative gave this idea of collective action a physical form at the annual gathering, with members joining together to plant a butterfly sculpture on the ranch. Coordinated by A Regenerar, the project brings local people in La Red’s different territories together to create living land-art sculptures shaped like butterflies, built from native aromatic plants — rosemary, lavender, thyme, sage, santolina — to restore habitat for pollinators and increase biodiversity. 

Like the rest of the Network’s work, each butterfly starts small and local. But overtime, more butterflies are planted, and dozens of local actions become a united, peninsula-wide movement. 

A network in motion 

Despite the challenges faced in the region, the network had a lot to celebrate this year, including but not limited to: 

• AlVelAl, in the Altiplano Estepario, marked its 10th anniversary with more than 600 members and the presentation of a new eco-regenerative certification.  
• Aliança Mar i Terra in Mallorca shared results from their Blue Pilot Project pilot project, a flagship initiative combining research, biodiversity monitoring and community action. 
• In Terres de l’Ebre, five farmers have begun producing regenerative, organic rice with private financing — part of a larger Integrated Life Project taking shape in Catalunya.  
• In Baixo Alentejo, five communities of practice are now active, spanning viticulture, holistic grazing, agroforestry, bioeconomy, and hydrological design. 
• A Regenerar initiative now reaches 60,000+ followers 
• Regenerando Mariposas has created butterflies eight in regions across the network 

Creating governance structures to unlock further change 

As the assembly progressed, a clear thread became visible: the Network is growing from a space of sharing inspiration into one that needs infrastructure. Participants identified a strategic vision and roadmap, clarity on how the network functions, and a sustainable financing model as top priorities. 

Participants were asked to envision how La Red will be in 2035, and the responses were ambitious and concrete: a foundation as the network’s central structure, an endowment fund and bioregional financing facilities, a shared way of measuring impact across every territory, a communications alliance so these separate efforts can start being seen as one movement. 

“Regeneration must encompass ecological, economic, political, social, and cultural dimensions.” – participant 

They agreed on concrete next steps, from setting up a legal structure to co-managing shared funding for training.

Work then moved into circles: Governance, Communication, Advocacy, Inspiration and Learning, Financing — each building roadmaps and giving the Network a working structure to carry these decisions forward. 

None of this works without land — but it also doesn’t work without people

A visit to the Beloki Mendia cheesemakers was a reminder that regeneration can transform territory’s resources into value, roots, and a future for the people who live there.

It’s about villages staying inhabited, families remaining on their ancestral land, and a patchwork of local efforts slowly becoming something big enough to shift an entire continent.

“We are changing the landscape, but above all, we are changing the lives of people.”

The political context is shifting – and the signs are positive 

La Red is actively engaged in shaping Spain’s National Restoration Plan, identifying policies that currently hinder farmers’ transition to regenerative practices and proposing alternatives in their place. In late May, members from the Directorate-General for Biodiversity visited Campo de Montiel, a landscape that is part of La Red. They highlighted an opportunity for restoration organisations to submit restoration measures to local governments, who will in turn forward proposals for inclusion at the national level. 

The butterfly effect 

A butterfly flaps its wings in Navarra. From there, the effect ripples outward, through Terres de l’Ebre, Baixo Alentejo, the Altiplano Estepario, and beyond — until Iberia is no longer a patchwork of separate, local efforts, but a unified network, driving change at a national scale.