Six ways to make cross-border nature governance work in the Meseta Ibérica Transboundary Biosphere Reserve

A simple question often reveals the core problem: who actually has the legal powers to protect biodiversity and enforce environmental policy in the territory? In practice, those competences sit with public authorities such as the Junta de Castilla y León in Spain and the Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas (ICNF) in Portugal. Yet, as the document highlights, these authorities are not part of the EGTC membership that is supposed to manage the Reserve.

This creates an awkward gap: the managing entity is expected to deliver integrated and sustainable management, but the public bodies with statutory responsibility are not structurally embedded in decision-making. The recommendation is therefore straightforward: integrate the competent environmental authorities as full members of ZASNET EGTC, which is legally possible under the EGTC Regulation.

Institutions can be dynamic, but their legal bases need to keep up. ZASNET’s founding convention and statutes were adopted in 2010, before the Meseta Ibérica became a Transboundary Biosphere Reserve in 2015. That means the statutes contain general language on cross-border cooperation, but do not clearly confer a specific mandate for TBR governance.

Even more importantly, the document flags an issue: amendments to organizational structures and membership should follow the formal approval and publication procedures required by Portuguese law. Where those steps are missing, it generates legal uncertainty about validity and enforceability.

The recommendation is not about adding bureaucracy for its own sake. Rather, it seeks to ensure that the governance model rests on a solid legal foundation: proper authorization, proper publication, and updated statutes that clearly define ZASNET’s role, objectives and competences as the manager of the Transboundary Biosphere Reserve. In practical terms, this approach reduces institutional risk and legal uncertainty, while enhancing transparency, accountability and confidence among partners, funders and other stakeholders.

The energy transition is one of the places where cross-border governance becomes most visible for people. Large-scale renewables can bring investment, but they can also bring resentment when they feel top-down, externally driven, and disconnected from local benefits. The recommendations point to a familiar dynamic: projects that do not deliver tangible socio-economic value locally can undermine acceptance and exacerbate asymmetries in how natural resources are managed.

The proposed response is to actively support community-based energy projects anchored in local ownership, participatory governance and equitable benefit-sharing. When communities co-own or co-govern energy assets, you reduce the extractive feel of development and increase long-term legitimacy.

The recommendation also links this approach to international and EU policy logic: Biosphere Reserves are meant to be participatory, and EU law recognizes energy communities and requires enabling conditions. The message is: if the transition is to be just, it has to be socially embedded, not merely technically efficient.

Participation is cited as a key criterion for qualifying an area as a biosphere reserve (Statutory Framework, Article 4, paragraph 6), yet in practice it risks becoming a procedural formality rather than a meaningful democratic exercise. In the Meseta Ibérica TBR, this risk exists. The transboundary nature of the territory, the coexistence of multiple legal and administrative frameworks, institutional fragility, and the diversity of stakeholders, languages and cultural contexts all make participation genuinely difficult. The point, however, is not to lower expectations, but to approach the involvement with realism and intention. Effective participation must be designed.

The proposed approach is therefore deliberately structured. It starts by recognizing that the public is not a homogeneous group. Local authorities, farmers, cooperatives, small businesses, environmental organizations, citizens’ platforms and energy communities have different capacities, interests and ways of engaging. Mapping these actors is a necessary first step to designing participation tools that are fit for purpose rather than one-size-fits-all.

Second, participation should not be confined to existing governing bodies. While institutional representation is essential, it is not sufficient. Creating additional spaces for consultation and engagement enables voices that are otherwise marginal or informal to enter decision-making processes, particularly in defining strategic priorities for the Reserve.

Finally, participation itself must be evaluated. Running targeted consultation processes to identify the legal, administrative or practical barriers that prevent effective involvement is essential. Without this feedback loop, participation risks remaining abstract and disconnected from lived realities.

If local communities view the Transboundary Biosphere Reserve primarily as an external label to attract visitors, it will struggle to become a shared, lasting project. The risk is described with notable clarity: without stronger local recognition, ZASNET may be seen as an “empty label”, disconnected from everyday life in the territory. This is not simply a communication problem.

Rooting the Transboundary Biosphere Reserve locally requires carefully balanced strategies that combine information, communication and genuine participation, tailored to different local actors and contexts. Information must not become advertising. Legitimacy is not marketing; it is achieved through meaningful involvement in shaping the identity, priorities, and management of the Transboundary Biosphere Reserve.

Funding should be approached in the same way: not as a purely financial problem, but as a governance problem.

Ambitious governance requires resources. Without stable and adequate funding, even the most carefully designed strategies risk remaining aspirational. For a biosphere reserve, this challenge is structural: environmental protection, social cohesion, and territorial development must advance together. Beyond the financial involvement of provincial and local authorities, it is both desirable and necessary that public bodies holding statutory environmental competencies on both sides of the border become actively involved. In this respect, the engagement of the Junta de Castilla y León and the Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas is key. Their participation would not only strengthen financial capacity but also enhance institutional legitimacy and ensure the long-term viability of biodiversity governance in the Meseta Ibérica TBR.

A concrete example of how governance choices matter is the role of local authorities in supporting community energy initiatives. Support does not need to be limited to grants. In-kind and patrimonial contributions, such as access to land, rooftops or infrastructure under favorable conditions, can make the difference between an idea and a viable project. Equally important is a governance principle embedded in EU law: energy communities are meant to prioritize environmental, social and local economic benefits over profit. When revenues are reinvested in local services or biodiversity protection, these projects move beyond economic activity and become part of the Transboundary Biosphere Reserve’s broader conservation and territorial mission.