Hello everyone, I’m Romane! I’m nearly halfway through my experience as an IVY volunteer for the SOLPYR Interrreg Poctefa program led by the CTP-OPCC, in the heart of the Pyrenees, and I’d like to share some of my experiences with you, who read me.
The Working Community of the Pyrenees (CTP) is an interregional body for cross-border cooperation, created at the initiative of the Council of Europe in 1983. It is based in Jaca and comprises the Principality of Andorra, the Spanish autonomous communities of Aragon, Catalonia, the Basque Country and Navarre and the French regions of Nouvelle Aquitaine and Occitania. The main objective of the CTP is to contribute to the development of the Pyrenees area, taking into account its challenges and preserving its strengths. It also seeks to promote exchanges between the territories and actors located in the Pyrenees massif, to jointly address their problems and seek common solutions, and to implement cross-border actions. The CTP also created the Pyrenean Climate Change Observatory (OPCC) in 2010 with the aim of better understanding the consequences of climate change and reflecting on how to adapt to these effects. It’s within this entity that I now have the chance to carry out my IVY volunteer work.
The SOLPYR project is about promoting climate change adaptation, disaster risk prevention and resilience, taking into account ecosystem-based approaches. Specifically, I’m working at the Pyrenean Climate Change Observatory on the management of the SOLPYR project, which was launched recently. In particular, we’re in charge of governance, which means I have to organize meetings between partners, seminars and documents that are useful for transferring and replicating knowledges’ projects that are taking place in the bioregion and that could feed into other initiatives. Cross-border cooperation is a long-term undertaking, but one in which many synergies emerge when scattered efforts come together. SOLPYR is the first Pyrenean project that will focus on cross-border mapping of soils and to draw up an action plan in the Pyrenees to help their protection and resilience to climate change, and I’m very happy to be able to be part of this adventure!
It is such a pleasure to be supporting European Territorial Cooperation and Solidarity across pyrenean borders!
– Romane, IVY Project Partnerat the Working Community of the Pyrenees (CTP), for the Interreg POCTEFA project SOLPYR
