LOCAL AGENDA 21 OF SIERRA DEL RINCÓN MANCOMMUNITY
ENVIRONMENTAL DECLARATION OF SIERRA DEL RINCÓN MANCOMUNITY (18 OF NOVEMBER OF 2004)

Sierra del Rincón Mancommunity includes five small municipalities of Sierra Norte of Madrid: La Hiruela, Horcajuelo de la Sierra, Montejo de la Sierra, Prádena del Rincón and Puebla de la Sierra, all of them with very similar characteristics (generalized uninhabitement, Services and Infraestructures shortage, little favourable Access conditions, enriching Natural Environment, a Tourist Sector in maximum expansion, a Primary Sector in crisis, etc.).

The fifties, sixties and seventies supposed the demographic balance rupture and a transformation of the Economic System of the Region, taking place a migratory process by which a good part of Sierra del Rincón population left their villages for living and working in Madrid City or its metropolitan area. Derivative of this phenomenon of uninhabitement, a progressive abandonment of the traditional jobs took place and supposed the beginning of the Economic Sector crisis until that preponderant moment: the Farming Sector.

In the society in which we live, experimented Economic, Social and Technological processes are constant, advances that have doubtlessly contributed to offer every time greater comforts to us. Nevertheless, these accelerated and far from the common sense changes, suppose a serious threat for Environment and for the habitability of our territory.

This worrisome reality is especially aggravating in small municipalities as which ones that integrate our Mancommunity. Fast transformations in an environment in which we were, can suppose the total destruction of its identity signs, causing an irreparable loss of integrity and quality of this valuable space of the Community of Madrid. It is fundamental to consider where the Development of our municipalities has to pass to, as well as the valuation and conservation of our Natural Environment. The present well-being cannot suppose as a payment the unsusteinable use of the existing resources.

Fortunately, this situation has changed in the last years when, from the diverse public administrations with their presence in Sierra del Rincón, conscience of the importance of the integrated support of the Rural Environment has been taken. It has originated the beginning of a whole series of Actions and Projects that, insisting on the conservation of Historical, Cultural and Natural Patrimony, have managed to elevate the life quality of the inhabitants of Sierra del Rincón, linking them to their municipalities and favouring, therefore, the Ecological, Demographic and Territorial Equilibrium.

We have to look for a more controlled Socioeconomic and Environmental advance, in the advocated line of Sustainability, so that this Development is undertaken from the Precaution Environmental Principle and with a participative manner among all the neighbours, to avoid a heartrendering future of the natural richness that we have. Thus, the Economic and Social Development has to be maintained, but without putting in danger the future use of Natural Resources, nor compromising Environment and the Life Quality in our municipalities.

The present conditions are favourable to fix new Development Objectives that incorporate the quality and efficiency challenges that the society demands, which a different use of the Natural Resources (water, energy, ground, forests...) and the acquisition of a high Environmental Life and quality level are emphasized, distributed with an equitable and solidarity manner. At this moment, opening a new stage that allows us to advance towards greater Sustainability models is fundamental.

Our Mancommunity has already reached a firm agreement on the philosophy of Sustainable Development and municipal model that wants to be followed in the future. For more than one decade ago, we have been working in this line, betting on a present of quality and a disfrutable well-being without it supposes to mortgage the future.

Nevertheless, the undertaken way is not simple. The local resources insufficiency (especially economic ones) to take the proposed actions  to a good term, the complexity to introduce changes that imply new forms of behaviour or the shortage of instruments whereupon we count for the implementation of all these measures, will need a strong support from the supramunicipal institutions if positive results want to be obtained. It is necessary to create a more favourable environment that allows accelerating the progression towards municipal scenes of greater sustainability, allowing to its time to promote the resources and the endogenous economic capacities.

Sierra del Rincón Mancommunity is conscious of the situation derived from the new exigencies of the Present Society: fast changes in the productive systems, economies, society, urbanism, etc., but also of the necessity to conserve the rich traditional patrimony of this Region. For it, it is understood like essential a deepening in the Environmental subjects approach, since from, the respect of the Natural Environment necessities; we will be fitting the rest of the Social and Economic aspects.

At the present moment, the application of Agenda 21 supposes to have a mark of quality, guaranteeing in the presence of the Community of Madrid and the European Union for the continuation of undertaken projects and the accomplishment of other new ones, as well as for the search of financing of such.

This Mancommunity recognizes the initiative of Local Agenda 21, originated in 1992 during “La Cumbre de la Tierra de Río de Janeiro”, as an Action Plan for the Sustainable Development of the villages in the XXI century, and the existence of the Aalborg Letter as the official document for the beginning of any Sustainable Action Plan.

Since 2002, this Mancommunity, integrating the consensus profile of Sustainability derived from La Cumbre de la Tierra de Río de Janeiro, begins to work in Local Agenda 21, trying to look for a local management model (in subjects such as infrastructures, tourism, cattle farming, new technologies, etc.) that is Innovating and, first of all, Sustainable.

The municipalities’ members of Sierra del Rincón Mancommunity approved, through their competent Organ, the Local Agenda 21 of this Mancommunity. In this way, each mancommuned municipality acquired the compromise of its initiation, subsequent writing of an Action Plan and Monitoring and continued Evaluation.

The five municipalities have accepted the contents of the Aalborg Leter, being ratified the adhesion by the Mancommunity Assembly and assuming the coordination and management of Agenda 21 of Sierra del Rincón.

In this context, Local Agenda 21 of Sierra del Rincón is the key of the future, where the Environmental, Social and Economic Equilibrium is maintained. Elaborated, discussed and assumed by ample citizen sectors and integrated by a set of Programs and Actions, our Agenda 21 initiates a work line in syntony with the most advanced European cities and the Environmental policy of the European Union, appeared in VI Action Programme of the European Community in matter of Environment.

Local Agenda 21 tries to give solution to serious Environmental problems that are considered, looking for consesuated alternatives (public agents and politicians, businessmen and citizens) towards a harmony among Environment, Economic interests and Social expressions, that is to say, proposing a Sustainable Development model.

In our Mancommunity Statutes, the functions of “Conservation, Exploitation, Defense and Diffusion of Natural Environment” are collected, as an objective to carry out from the Local Corporation. From this positioning, we are working in diverse projects in relation with Environment. Due to our territorial conformation, with a 87% of Protected Territory and a high Environmental level, the Mancommunity of Sierra del Rincón has chosen to undertake projects that display common transverse contents, prone to the Landscape conservation and improvement and the Environmental Biodynamism, supported at any moment from the Environment Area of the Mancommunity, of recent creation. Without doubt, our most important project in this area is the implantation of Agenda 21 of Sierra del Rincón Mancommunity, an integrating element of all local policies of Sustainable Rural Development that will have to be adopted in the future to reach the desirable Socioeconomic progress and the Environmental conservation in this territory.

Having reunited the agents of Sierra del Rincón Municipalities and of the own Mancommunity, with the OBJECTIVE to promote the projects that conduce to the implementation of Local Agenda 21 and, ADVISING of the importance that constitute its valuable Natural and Sociocultural Patrimony for the present and future of this environment, it IS RECOGNIZED and assumed THE COMPROMISE of:

01. To promote the Sustainable Development of the municipalities of Sierra del Rincón Mancommunity through the projects execution derived from Local Agenda 21. Local Agenda 21 is recognized as the instrument that will be in charge to gather the future proposals with an ordered manner (AGENDA) by means of an ample participation of everyone (social, economic, political, professional agents and citizens in general), being a tool of action for Environmental, Social and Economic Sustainable Development of our municipalities (LOCAL). It has to exist, in addition, at any moment, a meeting among the different villages (JOINT).

02. To assume the responsibility of the accomplishment and beginning of the Action Plan for the Sustainability of our Mancommunity, fulfilling therefore the compromise of adhesion to the Sustainable European Cities Letter – Carta de Aalborg, Aalborg Letter-, in view of the existence of important Natural and Cultural Resources appropiate for a Sustainable Development in Sierra del Rincón. All the municipalities of Sierra del Rincón Mancommunity accept the validity of principles, characteristics and objectives proposed in relation to the Integrated Planning and Management of the territory.

03. To fulfill an international compromise to stimulate measures directed to make compatibles the Environment with the Social and Economic Development of the mancommuned municipalities, in a structured and planned way. In this manner, our policies, actions and decision makings will facilitate the interrelation of Environmental, Social, Economic and Cultural aspects at any moment. The specific proposals that are generated under protection of Local Agenda 21 of Sierra del rincón Mancommunity have to be Socially Equitable, Economically Compatible, Economically Viable and Territorially Coherent.

04. To consolidate the Local Agenda 21, as a useful, effective, specific and operative tool that improves the image of Sierra del Rincón, when fomenting a Sustainable Local Economy and a better Quality of Life of its citizens. Agenda 21 has to be the motor of new initiatives and projects that facilitate a supramunicipal integration that is respectful with Environment and safeguard the specific character of each Population.

05. To adapt the future actions of Development to more and more demanding European, state and of the Community of Madrid norms.

06. To reach socially acceptable solutions, when making to feel the citizens as participants of the municipal management model, so that each neighbour contributes with his ideas and works in the harmonious search of a consensus in the future actions directed towards the Sustainability of our Mancommunity. The participation and the implication of Economic and Social Sectors of Sierra del Rincón in the compromise of Sustainable Development will be fomented, so that the Development planning process is more democratic and participative.

07. To interchange experiences and to make systematic contacts among technicians, politicians and citizens of our municipalities, as well as with other networks and organizations (governmental and nongovernmental ones) who are working in the same sense. It is necessary to coordinate the public policies, independently of the sector and its administrative scale, prioritizing the collaboration among the different institutions (including the Universities of the Community of Madrid).

08. To generate added value to the public initiatives and to turn Local Agenda 21 of the Mancommunity in a reference manual for the adoption of business and governmental policies focused on that the Development is Socially, Economically and Environmentally Susteinable. It is very convenient to bind the possibilities of Development of Sierra del Rincón to the Sustainable exploitation of the own endogenous resources of the Region.

09. To innovate the public management and to adapt it to the new tendencies, at the same time that a future vision of the municipalities that incorporates an added value for its adjustment to the criteria of Local Sustainability is integrated: preferred access to European financial lines and recognition at international level. New formulas of Social and Economic Development that allow to increase the life level of population without decrease of Natural and Cultural Patrimony to inherit by the future generations will be explored.

10. To orient the private Developments so that their objectives are compatible with the respect of the Local Patrimony and the Public Interest.

11. To look for mechanisms and strategies that increase the relative weight of the small rural areas in the autonomic, state and European frame, as a guarantee of territorial Reequilibrium and Sustainability.

12. To impel the joint search of financing and cooperation opportunities to develop specific projects related to the application of Local 21 Agenda of Sierra del Rincón Mancommunity.

13. To preserve and promote the Natural Environment of Sierra del Rincón, towards a Sustainable future, anticipating a controlled growth and avoiding devastating consequences for our territory (a preventive and participative, non alleviated measure, in view of our Development possibilities). It is recognized the ecological fragility of Natural Resources and the present existence of soil uses and economic activities not always compatible among them and with the conservation of the own resources.

14. To look for a local Sustainable Development based on the fair and rational use of the existing resources and on the recovery of local patrimony.

15. To watch over a city-planning and architectonic growth that totally respects the endogenous characteristics of the Region (Culture, Tradition, Environment, etc.).

16. To improve and facilitate the Accessibility and Mobility of all the people who move around the territory of Sierra del Rincón Mancommunity, turning it into a good communicated space as well as there are not physical barriers for handicap people.

17. To work for a better Residues Management in the territory of Sierra del Rincón Mancommunity.

18. To incorporate progressively New Technologies to the service of Sierra del Rincón citizens and to promote the introduction of Renewable Energies respectful with the Environment .

19. To impel the Economic Development, respecting the Environmental and Social characteristics and looking for new bussiness activities adapted to the Rural Environment.

20. To modernize the Tourist Sector as future Economic Motor of the zone, being defined a product and quality purpose, giving opening to new demands but controlling overcrowdings.

21. To increase and motivate the permanent Residential Population in Sierra del Rincón municipalities.

22. To extend and improve the Public Spaces and Services (house, health, education, water management, etc.).

23. To dynamize the Employment in Sierra del Rincón.

24. To incorporate citizens Opinions and Suggestions to the process of Agenda 21, both for the knowledge of the real situation of the territory and in the contribution of ideas for the Sustainable Development.

25. To extend the Culture taste among Sierra del Rincón citizens.

26. To authorize Sierra del Rincón Mancommunity to carry out Management and Coordination tasks of Local Agenda 21.

27. To authorize the Mayors to sign whichever documents are necessary in relation with our Action Plan.

The institutional compromise is strong, and at the present moment all the Means are meeting (Technical, Human and Economic ones) so that this strategy becomes a Sustainable Development at short, half and long term, for both present neighbours of Sierra el Rincón and future generations.

This compromise is also a proposal that we send to other municipalities and supramunicipal organizations. We are sure that this project will be also of extreme interest as a transferable experience to other territorial spaces.