The territorial delegate, Yolanda de Gregorio, accompanied by the head of the Territorial Health Service, Elena del Vado, and the head of the Territorial Environmental Service, José Antonio Lucas, yesterday chaired a preparatory meeting, with all the agents involved, on the next mycological campaign. Representatives of the Government Subdelegation have attended, who have expressed their total collaboration with the Junta de Castilla y León, as up to now, in the control of mycological use, of the Command of the Civil Guard, of the Provincial Council of Soria, of the Montes de Soria Association and different mycological boundaries. De Gregorio has highlighted that this campaign “is presented in a special way due to the conditions resulting from the current health crisis, for which we must all be vigilant to avoid as much as possible the grouping of people both in the mountains, mainly in shelters and other places of public use, as well as in urban areas ”. The delegate thanked the collaboration of all the institutions and associations involved, and in a special way the effort made in this mycological control operation by the Civil Guard and the agents and guards of the Territorial Environmental Service, as well as the agents of the City Council of Soria and the Commonwealth of Soria and its Land.
The head of the Territorial Health Service, Elena del Vado, has reported on the regulations for the traceability of the mycological product and the considerations to take into account regarding the health situation. He has given an account of Agreement 46 of the Junta de Castilla y León, which approves the Plan of Prevention and Control Measures of COVID-19, reviewing the sanitary conditions that must be met when harvesting mushrooms. It has been recalled that mushroom pickers, even coming in organized groups, they are not temporary, unless they have an employment contract with a company and comply with all regulations. José Antonio Lucas has reviewed with the attendees different regulatory aspects on the collection of mushrooms, in accordance with forestry and environmental legislation, such as Law of Montes 43/2003, Law 3/2009, of Montes de Castilla y León and, especially, Decree 31/2017, which regulates the Wild Mycological Resource in Castilla y León.
In the next campaign, joint and coordinated action will be maintained between the environmental agents of the Junta de Castilla y León and the Civil Guard, to fight against illegal collection. Of these control operations resulted in last year a total of 545 complaints, 8,950 kilograms of seized mushrooms (recovering a large part of their value as income to their owners), the seizure of 23 vehicles and the opening of a criminal case for falsification of documentation. The lieutenant colonel chief of the Soria Command of the Civil Guard of Soria, Andrés Manuel Velarde, with whom all the assistants have agreed, has deepened in the need for this coordination between administrations and in knowing the data of the different types of established permits in each mycological boundary, requesting to those responsible for the preserves an agile contact form for the management of the necessary information that facilitates the work of the authority agents.
At present, the preserves numbers 50001, Pinares Altos de Urbión; 50002, from the Montes de Soria Association; and 50003, of the Board’s own mountains, already have a system for issuing permits over the Internet. This formula greatly facilitates the inspection work of the Civil Guard and environmental agents, since by having access to this data they can clearly identify the collector and if he has permission. In this sense, the possibility of create a platform accessible to agents, in which all the preserves dump the data of their collection permits, for a better coordination in the control of mycological use.
At the meeting, the existing operating protocol was reviewed with the Prosecutor’s Office of the Provincial Court of Soria, to coordinate the efforts of the authorities, and that will be reviewed once the new chief prosecutor is incorporated. José Antonio Lucas has reported the next creation of the Mycological Park (This figure can be constituted from 10,000 hectares), which will include the mountains in the current mycological reserve number 50002, of the Montes de Soria Association, and those of the 50003 reserve, formed by the mountains owned by the company itself. Castilla and leon meeting. Remember that, to date, the province of Soria has 10 mycological boundaries, with a total area of 183,633.95 hectares, which represents 27% of the regulated mycological area in Castilla y León.
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