What's going on in the Lab?

27/02/24 | The six partners of the Barbanza Ecosocial Lab meet in Rianxo to start a new phase of the project with the support of Fundación Biodiversidad.
10/03/24 | Our recruitment platform, a green job portal to strengthen the local economy of Barbanza, is already up and running.
09/02/24 | The Laboratory receives 2 million euros for the sustainable management of the territory, after being selected in the call for forest bioeconomy of Fundación Biodiversidad.

Recruitment platform

The Barbanza Ecosocial Lab foresees the contracting of different professional profiles by the participating forest communities, as well as the subcontracting of numerous forestry service packages.

pestanas-contratacion

What is the Lab?

Find out more about this collaborative and multidisciplinary initiative that works together with local communities to promote a transition towards environmental sustainability and increase resilience in the territorial management of the Barbanza region.

The Barbanza region, a reality to be studied

What are the logics in the management of the territory? What is the community? How does society relate to the territory? What knowledge can we extract to work towards an eco-social transition? These and other questions will be unravelled through the research.

The cows return to Laíño. Sustainability, autonomy and good living Laboratorio Ecosocial do Barbanza – HISTAGRA / GESPIC Some ten years ago, Luis Miguel Ríos Freiría, Míchel to his friends …
Máis ca leña: how to rethink land management? Laboratorio Ecosocial do Barbanza – HISTAGRA / GESPIC Sometimes an apparently small initiative, if we look at it in terms of surface …
Education for the transformation of the territory: the experience of Félix Muriel Secondary School in Rianxo Laboratorio Ecosocial do Barbanza – HISTAGRA / GESPIC At the end of March 2019, …
Of all the topics with which Galicia is usually explained, individualism is undoubtedly one of the most frequent and strongest. In spite of this, the collective sense still prevails in rural areas, at least more strongly than in other areas of our society.
In the authoritarian context of the Franco dictatorship the door was opened to a productivist model imposed by the State and also linked to the corporate capitalism of the regime. In this new model the territory loses its character of integrated system.
The house and the communal forest are not separate entities, but are part of a system of inter-relationships which was the basis of a self-sufficient economy that supported the Galician and Barbantian population.
The Lab’s online home is a platform for meeting, knowledge-sharing and information. Through engaging graphics, maps, videos and articles, online visitors can access the work, the people and the stories around the project and its research on sustainable development in the Barbanza peninsula in Galicia.
The territorial structure of Galicia, in which parishes and villages are the basic cells of its organization, kept its productive character almost intact until the mid-20th century. Despite changes in lifestyles, a whole series of community values have generally been maintained, which can only be understood from a social perspective.
The village and the parish are the basic units of the territorial organization of Galicia. Knowing their origins, productive logic and community relations could provide keys to their role today and in the future.

Acting in the territory

The Barbanza, besides being a space inhabited by a community, with their knowledge and logic of management, is also a geographical space. Through the Interactive Map we can understand the multiple layers in the interaction between society and territory and the changes that have taken place over the last few decades.

When we were sustainable, the book of the Laboratory

The first phase of the Barbanza Ecosocial Lab concluded with the publication of “When we were sustainable. Learning from Barbanza: shaping our future from our roots“, which brings together the conclusions of the first three years of the project’s work.

The book is available – in Galician, Spanish or English – both for online reading and for physical purchase at a non-profit price of 15€.

This amount allows us to cover production costs and to contribute 10€ for each copy sold to finance sustainable agricultural, livestock, forestry or cultural initiatives in Barbanza.