Community action/Spain

Madrid Shared Space, Oct 2009. Attribution: EURIST e.V.
Location data
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Location Spain
Coordinates 39° 19' 33.85" N, 4° 50' 16.72" W

The aim of this page is to recognise, celebrate and encourage the self-empowerment of community agency networks (CANs) and community groups' activism for climate, environment and many other sustainability topics across Spain.

News

Spain
Europe
Cosmolocal
  • News Spain to open network of climate shelters, BBC News (Dec 17, 2025)
  • News ‘We’re proud to be pioneers’: inside Spain’s community energy revolution, theguardian.com (Nov 14, 2025) — From Taradell to Galicia, cooperatives are supplying cheap, clean electricity to homes and helping tackle fuel poverty
  • News Co-ops looking to change the world, town by town, thenews.coop (Nov 03, 2025)
Read more
  • News Geothermal could replace almost half of the EU’s fossil fuel power, grist.org (Feb 10, 2026)
  • News I developed an app that uses drone footage to track plastic litter on beaches, theconversation.com (Jan 21, 2026)
  • News Europeans overwhelmingly support the social economy, poll finds, thenews.coop (Dec 12, 2025) — 93% of Europeans think businesses should be guided by social economy values, such as focusing on social and environmental goals, redistributing profits, and operating with democratic governance structures
  • News The planet’s other forest crisis, latimes.com (Feb 19, 2026)
  • News ‘They pushed so many lies about recycling’: the fight to stop big oil pumping billions more into plastics, theguardian.com (Feb 19, 2026)
  • News The world’s rainforests are vanishing. In this one country, they’re growing back., vox.com (Feb 19, 2026) — How did Costa Rica beat back deforestation and buck the global trend?

International events

Global or International events

  • Event Feb 02, 2026 (Mon) — World Wetlands Day, Feb 2, annually, worldwetlandsday.org
  • Event Feb 20, 2026 (Fri) — World Day of Social Justice, Feb 20 each year, un.org
  • Event February 21 - March 1, 2026 (Sat - Sun) — Real Bread Week, annual, international celebration of additive-free bread and the people behind its rise, sustainweb.org

2021-2030, UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, International community action events

Cosmolocal discovery club

Each week 3 different short videos from across the world.

Community networks, Community action/Finland, Community action/Peru / ...This week's featured UK videos / ... read more about Cosmolocalism

Spain video

Networks and sustainability initiatives

  • IbizaPreservation, "works to preserve Ibiza and Formentera's land and sea. Our vision is for the islands to be a model of sustainability, where the preservation of the islands' exceptional natural beauty and resources contribute to local well-being and prosperity." added 08:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Ecologistas en Acción (Wikipedia): una confederación más de 300 grupos ecologistas de toda España con una estructura asamblearia y cuya unificación se produjo en diciembre de 1998. Forma parte del llamado ecologismo social, que entiende que los problemas medioambientales tienen su origen en un modelo de producción y consumo cada vez más globalizado e insostenible (productivismo y consumismo), del que derivan también otros problemas sociales; modelo que consideran necesario transformar si se quiere evitar la crisis ecológica. Pretenden asimismo recuperar la conciencia de los límites de la biosfera. Para ello realiza campañas de sensibilización así como denuncias públicas contra aquellas actuaciones que dañan el medio ambiente. Ecologistas en Acción edita además la revista El Ecologista, tomando el relevo de Gaia en 1999.
  • Translations of transition materials
  • #PalmaSostenible on twitter
  • SUSTAINABLE ISLANDS, information on the Sustainable Tourism Tax in the Balearic Islands, added 14:39, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Bioregionalism

  • Resilience Earth, Reviving the Re·Generation of the earth, (Catalonia), "non-profit change management cooperative, committed to community resilience, regenerative design and the social and solidarity economy as fundamental tools for social, ecological and economic transformation." Video: Resilience Earth on youtube.com

Community and voluntary action

Andecha (from Latin indictia 'announcement) is voluntary, unpaid and punctual aid to help a neighbor carry out agricultural tasks (cutting hay, harvesting potatoes, building a barn, collecting apples to make cider, etc.). The work is rewarded with a snack or a small party and the tacit commitment that the person assisted will come with their family to the call of another andecha when another neighbor requests it. It is very similar to the Irish meitheal.

It should not be confused with another Asturian collective work institution, the sestaferia. In this, the provision of the service is mandatory (under penalty of fine) and is not called a to help of an individual but the provision of common services (repair of bridges, cleaning of roads, etc.)

Community involvement

The anti-austerity movement in Spain, also referred to as the 15-M Movement (Spanish: Movimiento 15-M), and the Indignados Movement, was a series of protests, demonstrations, and occupations against austerity policies in Spain that began around the local and regional elections of 2011 and 2012. Beginning on 15 May 2011, many of the subsequent demonstrations spread through various social networks such as Real Democracy NOW (Spanish: Democracia Real YA) and Youth Without a Future (Spanish: Juventud Sin Futuro).

Spanish media related the movement to the 2008–2014 Spanish financial crisis, the Arab Spring, as well as demonstrations in North Africa, Iran, Greece, Portugal, and Iceland. The movement was also compared to Stéphane Hessel's political manifesto Time for Outrage!, which was seen to empower Spanish youth who were not in education, employment, or training (NEET). Protestors rallied against high unemployment rates, welfare cuts, politicians, and the two-party system in Spain, as well as the political system, capitalism, banks, and public corruption. Many called for basic rights, of home, work, culture, health, and education. The movement transferred to Europe the model of the protest camp which had been formed in the Arab Spring, adapting it to a more countercultural framework. This would later expand until influencing the creation of Occupy Wall Street.

According to RTVE, the Spanish public broadcasting company, between 6.5 and 8 million Spaniards participated in these events.

Sustainable transport activism

Cycling activism

Ciclismo

  • Conbici.org confederación de asociaciones ciclistas de España y Portugal. Su página contiene noticias e información sobre iniciativas como la creación de una Red Básica ciclista. Entre otras actividades, conbici es miembro del Consejo Superior de Tráfico y Seguridad de la Circulación Vial, en representación del colectivo de ciclistas en la vía pública. link checked 17:37, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Red de Ciudades por la Bicicleta
  • Sevilla: Sevilla - Sevici

Maps

Education for sustainability

Abrazo House, ecological study centre located in the Aras Valley, Cantabria, northern Spain - AVALON Sustainability School

Biodiversity

In 2010 and 2011, an unrelated initiative in the village of San Cebrián de Mudá (190 inhabitants) in Palencia, northern Spain released 18 European bison (a species extirpated from Spain since the Middle Ages) in a natural area already inhabited by roe deer, wild boar, red fox and grey wolf, as part of the creation of a 240-hectare "Quaternary Park". Three Przewalski's horses from a breeding center in Le Villaret, France were added to the park in October 2012. Onagers and "aurochs" were planned to follow.

In 2016 and 2018, the True Nature Foundation reintroduced in total 7 European bison of the Lowland-Caucasian breeding line in Anciles Wildlife Reserve in the Parque Regional de Picos de Europa in the Cantabrian mountains in northern Spain.

Environment quality

Ibiza Limpia keeping Ibiza clean and tidy

Trees, woodland and forest

Aboretum Marbella

Reforestación: Fundación Apadrina un Árbol, Proyecto de reforestación de área quemada en Guadalajara, España - malagareforesta.org Plan municipal de reforestación que incluye proyectos como éste de apadrinamiento de árboles.

Rural sustainability

guifi.net

Plan Estratégico Nacional de Desarrollo Rural 2007-2013, 2006

About Spain

Campaigns

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Europe and the fourth-most populous European Union (EU) member state. Spanning the majority of the Iberian Peninsula, its territory also includes the Canary Islands, in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean; the Balearic Islands, in the Western Mediterranean Sea; and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in mainland Africa. Peninsular Spain is bordered to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; to the east and south by the Mediterranean Sea and Gibraltar; and to the west by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid; other major urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Zaragoza, Málaga, Murcia, and Palma de Mallorca.

Near you

Barcelona - Barcelona news - Madrid

See also

local information and news can be found, or shared, via our many location pages

External links

Page data
Authors Phil Green
License CC-BY-SA-3.0
Cite as Phil Green (2014–2026). "Community action/Spain". Appropedia. Retrieved February 26, 2026.