[6] The term has been defined by Xarxa de Custòdia del Territori as “…a conservation strategy that involves a wide range of civil society stakeholders.
Nature, biodiversity, ecological integrity, cultural heritage and landscape values are maintained and restored through voluntary agreements between landowners/users and land stewardship organisations, General Administration, funding institutions and research centres, usually act as enabling agents”.
A very interesting case of the application of Land Stewardship can be found in the project carried out by the Spanish association Recartografías that takes place in Mas Blanco, located in the municipality of San Agustín (Teruel).
Mas Blanco is one of the fifteen neighbourhoods belonging to the municipality of San Agustin which has approximately 119 inhabitants and is located in Teruel region of Gúdar-Javalambre.
In the middle of the 20th century, shortly before the rural exodus began, in Mas Blanco almost a hundred people lived, constituting one of the most important neighbourhoods in the area.
Those exchanges made it possible for Mas Blanco's neighbours to obtain rice, oil, fruits, vegetables but also clothes, medicines or tools.
Inhabitants needed to perform intense work in order to maintain themselves, to which must be added the lack of basic services such as a doctor, a school or running water.
Also, children had to travel several kilometers to go to the school, and in case of emergency it was needed to go on horseback to San Agustin (1 km away) to bring the doctor.
One of the main tasks of this organisation was the creation of a common annual fund for the payment of the doctor, as well as the organization between the neighbourhoods in order to assist the sick or deceased.
Furthermore, Mas Blanco's inhabitants, due to the fact of the hard winters and the insecurity of the paths during the postwar period that followed the Spanish Civil War, decided to carry out the project of building a school for their children.
Another example of communal practices in Mas Blanco and San Agustin's area can be found in the so-called “luck of firewood”, which has lasted until today.
This voluntary agreement, without economic use, has not only the objective of reactivating the social fabric and community organization in Mas Blanco but also to rediscover the history and environmental and cultural heritage of this area.
Despite the fact of the significant deterioration of the buildings, some of them have already been recovered by the members of the association themselves with the help of volunteers using mainly traditional, low-impact construction techniques.
Eight visitable spaces are part of the museum: the teacher's house, the school, the common oven, the pressing building, a cellar, the cistern (aljibe) and a shelter and command post of the Civil War.
Not only that, Recartografias organises visits to the museum and some playful days in Mas Blanco directed to the use of the communal oven or a camp with boys scouts, among others.
[12][13] Some outcomes of the activity that Recartografias has been doing since 2014 are the direct enrichment of the participants; an increased visibility of Mas Blanco, its surroundings and therefore of the importance and challenges of the rural world; the enhancement of different ways of life and rural knowledge; the return of some Mas Blanco's inhabitants after several years to attend the re-opening of the school, among others; the awakening of the consciousness of many of them about the value that their life had; the meeting of different people interested and concerned about similar issues and the possibility to create network.
As has been already pointed out, one of the most important outcomes of the project for the association is the change in the way that the people that had to leave Mas Blanco and the surrounding neighbourhoods perceive this space.
Hence, the recovery of the materiality of some communal goods has led to a continuous transformation of the space and the interactions that take place between people, favouring subjectivation and learning processes.
Finally, they reach out to school children to increase their experience with sustainable land practices, and actively encourage volunteer participation.