Añana Salt Valley Foundation
The complex project to restore one of the world’s most important salt cultural landscapes has been underway since the late 1990s and can be divided into three stages:
- The first was developed between 2000 and 2004 by a multidisciplinary team of professionals who drafted the “Master Plan for the Integral Recovery of the Salt Valley” to document and investigate the tangible and intangible heritage of the property and establish the guidelines that provide a future for the Salt Valley.
- During the second period (2005-2008), part of the actions prescribed by the Master Plan were implemented, but above all, the foundations were laid for the future management of the salt flats.
- The third stage began in 2009, when the Añana Salt Valley Foundation was established, the entity in charge of its management, recovery and enhancement.
The Foundation, as the sole owner of the Salt Valley, has three main objectives:
- Recover and conserve the material and environmental culture of the landscape to ensure its sustainability.
- To produce with traditional techniques, in a sustainable way and respecting the millenary “know-how” of the salt producers, a high quality salt whose sale is contributing to the self-financing of the project.
- To develop, under a recovery approach open to citizens, cultural and tourism initiatives that are driving social, economic and tourism development in the region.
Since its inception, the Foundation has been aware that its objective could not focus solely on the Salt Valley, but had to go much further. After years of work, it has already been demonstrated that compliance with the route set out in the Management Plan, a document that updated in 2013 the guidelines of the Master Plan (2000-2004), makes the Salt Valley a key point for the tourist, cultural, economic and social revitalization of Alava and the Basque Country.
With a long-term action schedule, the Añana Salt Valley Foundation also promotes various actions open to citizens from the social, functional and landscape point of view. At the same time, it also develops research; respects and disseminates traditional construction and production systems; and promotes other resources that, working in a coordinated manner, collaborate in the enhancement of this unique Cultural Landscape in the world.