Partners

POCTEFA 

Partners

The Working Community of the Pyrenees (CTP) is made up of eight French political entities: Aquitaine, Midi-Pyrénées and Languedoc-Roussillon, which are joined to four Spanish Autonomous Communities to the south: Catalonia, Aragon, Navarra and the Euskadi, not forgetting the Principality of Andorra, a separate state. Since October 2009, the rotating presidency has been occupied for a period of two years by Martin Malvy, President of the Midi-Pyrénées region. The CTP promotes the development and conservation of the Pyrenees. Its mission: stimulate exchange between territories and its stakeholders and tackle the problems of today and tomorrow: transport, tourism, communications, and sustainable development. It is therefore within this framework that the CTP has decided to create the Pyrenees Climate Change Observatory.

Since October 2009, the rotating presidency has been occupied for a period of two years by Martin Malvy, President of the Midi-Pyrénées region. In 2010, the Midi-Pyrénées region put all the necessary actions in place to consolidate what will become the first projects of the Observatory. As a member of the Observatory, in collaboration with the CTP, the Midi-Pyrénées region has launched a study on adapting to climate change. This study is ongoing and will be completed at the end of 2012.

The APEM is an association whose mission is to contribute to the economic development of mountain territories as a way of assisting the network of current stakeholders in the Pyrenees. The APEM has been supporting stakeholders in development for more than 10 years through the construction and presentation of the SIG-Pyrénées socioeconomic observatory, while increasing the value of this process of collaboration.
Its involvement is based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), given that they:
- have the ability to greatly improve our economic models and they way we work.
- are capable to redesigning territories and pushing organisation to evolve.
- tackle and widen challenges.

The Catalan Water Agency (ACA) is a public company associated with the Department of Territory and Sustainability of the Regional Government of Catalonia. Its objective is to implement policy on the use of water in this area in accordance with the DCE directive on water. The ACA is a basin organisation with full jurisdiction of the internal basins within Catalonia (around 52% of Catalan territory). Jurisdiction is also shared with the Ebro Hydrographical Confederation on the Catalan side of the Ebro’s intercommunitary basins, and with the Júcar Hidrographical Confederation on the Catalan side of the Júcar basin.
The ACA is currently implementing the Management Plan of the River Basin District of Catalonia (DCFC) and its relevant measures. The above constitute hydrological planning instruments that allow the environmental objectives on Catalan territory arising from the DCE to be fulfilled.

The BRGM is a French national geological service and, as a public body, is a point of reference in the field of Earth Sciences. It manages resources and risks in the soil and subsoil.  Its actions centre around four missions: scientific research, support for public policy, international cooperation and mine safety.
The BRGM has two objectives: To understand geological phenomenon and the risks that they bring and to develop new methodologies and techniques, thus creating and diffusing quality data.
The development and provision of the tools needed for soil, subsoil and resource management, policies in response to climate change and the prevention of natural risks and contamination.

Founded in 1999, the Conservatory is a mixed consortium currently made up of the Midi-Pyrénées Regional Council, the General Council of Hautes-Pyrénées and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, the Community of municipalities of Bigorre and the city of Bagnères-de-Bigorre. It is a public institution supported by the Ministry of Ecology. Its missions are set out in the environment code which was reinforced in July 2010 by the Grenelle 2 Law concerning flora and natural habitats, the conservation of endangered nature and the technical and scientific collaboration of public powers. Another of its missions involves providing information and raising public awareness.
The Conservatory is involved throughout the entire Midi-Pyrénées region and the mountains of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department. It also strives for biogeographic coordination of CBN actions concerning the territory of the Pyrenees Massif.

FORESPIR, European Association of the Pyrenees for France and Spain was founded in 1999. Its objective: to find collective management solutions and reinforce cooperation. Its mission: to contribute to the maintenance and development of the economic, ecological and social role of forests areas. Its area of activity: territorial cooperation, project engineering (evaluation, interfacing, “forest-wood-environment” development).
Since it was founded, FORESPIR has coordinated various projects to the sum of around 7 million euros. It is also a project partner.
For more than ten years, the FORESPIR group has been acting as a tool of knowledge and a catalyst for the exchange of experiences and collaboration to the responsibilities service of the Pyrenees chain.

Ihobe is a Public Society whose aim is to support the Environment Department10, Territorial Planning, Agriculture and Fishing of the Basque government in the development of environment policy and in the field of environmental sustainability in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country.
Its headquarters are in Bilbao (Vizcaya, Spain) and it works within the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. Furthermore, Ihobe owns the Oleaz laboratory in Zamudio, which undertakes the analytic and administrative control of the oils used in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. Furthermore, it owns the Basque Country Biodiversity Centre - Torre Madariaga in Busturia (Viscaya, Spain).

The Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (IPE) is now a reference in scientific research on the overall change of the Pyrenees chain. This centre includes various multidisciplinary teams that study the environmental changes of the Pyrenees from different perspectives (palaeoclimate, instrumental climate, water reserves, snow and glaciers, flora, forests, landscape, soil exploitation, etc).
The IPE (IPE-CSIC) was founded in 1983 as a result of the joining of two former research centres: the Institute of Pyrenees Studies founded in 1942; and the Pyrenees Centre of Experimental Biology founded in 1963. The headquarters of the Institute was in Jaca (Huesca province, the Central Spanish Pyrenees). Later on in 1991, it moved into new offices and a laboratory in Zaragoza at the very centre of the Ebro depression. The double location provides the centre with an extraordinary opportunity to cover a large and important area of different ecosystems that represent the ecosystems of Europe.

The Meteorological Service of Catalonia (SMC), a body belonging to the Regional Government of Catalonia, aims to provide a quality public service in meteorology that satisfies the information and meteorological needs of society. It also aims to become a reference in maintenance, advice and information in the field within the Regional Government.
The basic roles of the SMC include: advising the Catalan Government on meteorology and climatology, managing and maintaining the Regional Government network of meteorological equipment (weather stations, meteorological radars, electrical shock detectors, the radiotracer station in Barcelona, etc).; to proceed to treatment, exploitation and diffusion of data recorded within the team; to maintain Catalonia’s meteorological database; to manage the forecasting and surveillance system of meteorological phenomenon in Catalonia; to evaluate, survey and monitor meteorological situations that pose a risk to the coordination of emergency centres in Catalonia by publishing warnings in the event of such occurrence and advising institutions in charge of civil protection in Catalonia; to encourage and participate in climate studies in Catalonia and in climate change analysis by collaborating in investigations in such sectors with national and international groups; etc.

The University of Zaragoza is a higher education centre of the Autonomous Community of Aragon. It is a quality institution of great prestige and is considered as one of the most important universities of Spain in terms of research and teaching. Within its departments is the Department of Geography and Spatial Planning, recognised for its longstanding background in basic and applied research in Aragon in general and more specifically in the Pyrenees. On many occasions it has worked with neighbouring bodies of Navarra, Catalonia and the Universities of Toulouse, Pau and Montpellier. The Department comprises various work teams which study the climatic characteristics of the Pyrenees Chain from different perspectives through interclimatic and instrumental climate analysis, the analysis of the thickness of snow and glaciers and atmospheric circulation patterns.