Silene is an non for-profit association, based in Olot, Spain, in the midst of the Natural Park of the Garrotxa Volcanic Zone, aimed at the study, dissemination and promotion of the spiritual and intangible cultural heritage, especially in relation to nature conservation.
It offers services and resources to assist in the incorporation of the spiritual and intangible cultural heritage values of nature in diverse areas, for example in the education, dissemination, public use, planning and management of natural conservation, and, especially, in natural protected areas and protected species.
Silene is member of PALNet, the Protected Areas Learning Network of IUCN.
Silene has a formal agreement with the Spanish section of Europarc to collaborate on the integration of the intangible cultural heritage into the protected areas of Spain.
Silene also collaborates with other organizations, such as the Ramsar Med-Wet Programme, the UNESCO Forum on Ecology, Spirituality and Religions, etc.
Achievements
The Silene Documentation Centre(www.silene.es)contains resources and documents on the world’s intangible spiritual and cultural heritage and its relevance on a local to international scale to the conservation of natural heritage. The service is provided in the three official languages of IUCN, i.e. English, Spanish, French –plusCatalan. The documents are in their original languages, being accompanied by translations whenever possible.They areorganized in five fields: Strategic, legal, planning, management, education, information and sensitisation, investigation and reflections about science and spirituality, and reflections about nature and spirituality. It allows searching by subject area, author, title and key words.
Silene collaborates with Med-INA in the joint co-ordination of The Delos Initiative since 2005, part of the IUCN WCPA Specialist Group on Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas, and has being responsible for preparing a number of case studies.
Silene has made presentations in several international conferences workshops and seminars, about the spiritual values of protected areas, the different meanings and values of the concept of nature, etc.
Deliverable 2010:
Silene becomes an institutional link of the IUCN WCPA Specialist Group on Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas. Its documentation centre becomes a resource for the Specialist Group. It is expected to increase the number of the featured documents to over 150.
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