What is special about the Salt Valley of Añana to carry out a comprehensive recovery? The answer is easy and we need not resort to unfounded old platitudes like that we are facing the largest exploitation in Europe, or the oldest or most productive. Its importance lies not only in its stunning architecture, historical and archaeological interest, landscape or environmental value, its geology or the particular biotope, but in the sum of all of them and that it happened in a privileged context.

Also, do not forget that the town of Añana is much more than its saltworks, because it's not only the natural entry point to Valdegovía, it also counts among its assets with a medieval wall which is being recovered; with ironworks, forges and furnaces in perfect condition; with fortified gates; with a church, several chapels and the last active monastery on the peninsula that belonged to the Military Order of St. John of Jerusalem; several baroque palatial buildings and even still mantains near the town a major source of animal tracks and perfectly preserved vegetation from about 22 million years ago. Therefore, Salinas de Añana becomes undoubtedly one of the most relevant architectural, landscape and archaeological collection of our community.

Works done by a large multidisciplinary team during the four years of implementing the Master Plan has shown that the best way to get the Salt Valley reborn is to recover its activity and supplement it with innovative proposals to ensure their future maintenance.

In that sense, from the beginning we were aware that it is not feasible to restore the Valley to convert it solely into a salt factory, but that that activity must be reconciled with others of different nature which would operate symbiotically to make good use of the values of the saltern and its environment (archaeological, environmental, scenic, geological, etc.) to regenerate each other.