Dehesas de Sierra Morena Biosphere Reserve

Right in the middle of the mountain ranges to the north of Huelva, Seville and Córdoba is the area known as Dehesas de Sierra Morena, declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 2002. The food and livestock farming use of the area, as well as the great natural wealth it contains, have helped it earn this recognition. It’s recognised as a stargazing destination by the Starlight Foundation.

With a total area of just over 425,000 hectares, the Dehesas de Sierra Morena are the largest of the Spanish network of biosphere reserves. Its territory, as well as including a further 8,000 hectares of unprotected areas, includes three natural parks in the north of Andalusia: Sierra de Hornachuelos, in Cordoba; Sierra Norte, in Seville; and Sierra de Aracena y Picos de Aroche, in Huelva. The Sierra de Hornachuelos provides the reserve with a Mediterranean mid-mountain ecosystem with varied flora and fauna, although both are richer in the Vega del Guadalquivir. Chestnut tree forests flood the landscape of the Sierra de Aracena and Picos de Aroche, north of the province of Huelva; and in the Seville sector, in the heart of the Sierra Norte, holm oak forests dominate and, in the wettest areas, gall oaks sprout up. However, the most representative and common feature of the reserve is undoubtedly the dehesa. This natural Mediterranean scenery, made up of extensive pastures populated by holm oaks and cork oaks, has been the basis of the area's economy for centuries, due to the agricultural and livestock use of this space. Precisely, the uniqueness of the dehesa within the global agricultural context has been one of the factors that has led UNESCO to declare this area a biosphere reserve, as it embodies a model of sustainable development, allowing human development without any harm to the conservation of its great biodiversity.