The Directorate General for the Natural Environment (Regional Ministry of Water, Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Environment) of the Region of Murcia participates as a partner in the LIFE project “Creation of a genetically and demographically functional Iberian Lynx (Lynx pardinus) metapopulation”, LYNXCONNECT.

On Thursday 17 March 2022, a meeting took place between representatives of the Directorate General for the Natural Environment (Director General and Deputy Director General) and the Mayor of Lorca, Diego José Mateos, together with the Councillor for Town Planning, Environment and Housing, José Luis Ruiz, to present the project and to explain its objectives and the main actions to be undertaken.

The Mayor, Mr. Diego José Mateos Molina, showed his interest in the project and his support for it, expressing how beneficial it could be for the municipality.

The project, which began in September 2020 and will end in 2025, aims to increase both the overall size of the Iberian lynx population and the connectivity between existing core populations to ensure a self-sustaining and genetically viable functional metapopulation in the long term. In addition to connecting the six existing nuclei on the Iberian Peninsula, two new nuclei will be created, one of them in the western part of the region, in the municipality of Lorca.

The Directorate General for the Natural Environment of the Region of Murcia is one of the 21 partners in this project, the coordinating partner being the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sustainable Development of the Regional Government of Andalusia.

The total budget of the project is 18.754.029 € and in the case of the CARM 999.920 €, being 40% of own funds and 60% EU contribution.

The CARM participates in 25 of the 33 actions included in the project, including support for the genetic management of wild and captive populations of Iberian lynx and the development of new complementary techniques for the monitoring of lynx populations, habitat management for the management of wild rabbits, the release of lynx, the monitoring of the nuclei created and the carrying out of informative actions.

LYNXCONNECT is a transnational project between Spain and Portugal financed by the European Union for the development of joint actions for the conservation of the Iberian lynx. Its main objective is to connect all lynx core areas by creating new areas of presence in intermediate zones and to create new core areas so that the global Iberian lynx population behaves as a functional and self-sustainable metapopulation.