La Miranda Foundation It has a vocation to explore and learn. Curiosity makes us listen carefully to horses to learn from them and what they reveal.
We are also interested in exploring how horses affect people and improve their quality of presence and life.
Another area that we are passionate about is recording the physical and emotional movement of horses who live in freedom to better understand how to accompany their lives. A life that inspires us, that speaks to us of connections and systems that balance in an order that we do not fully understand. We probably only receive a small percentage of information about how they live, how they organize themselves, how they communicate, how they decide and what they need at each moment. From this exercise in humility, we continue to listen and learn and become aware of what we have left to learn.
Network of actors and ecosystem
Audio Territorial Custody Entity (member of the XCTC – Network of Custody Entities of the Territory of Catalonia).
With horses grazing freely, we collaborate in the natural cleaning of the undergrowth, the prevention of the risk of fires and the recovery of ancestral paths and shortcuts, while being active in the conservation of fauna and flora.
With Transhumance we recover paths and connect sea and mountain, with the Mountain Horses and Sea Horses projects.
Jungles | Living landscapes
We have the commitment to protect the territory we occupy, protect the forest and wildlife threatened.
We prioritize the conservation and improvement of forests, the recovery of paths and ancestral livestock and agricultural structures.
We have a custody agreement signed with the property of Pla de l'Orri (Serra de Catllaràs) and the transfer of this space.
We have the purpose and we are committed to the improvement and conservation of the spaces where horses graze, trying to favor the properties.
Agreement on the conservation of the capercaillie and limestone marshes with Living Landscapes in Catllaràs. Monitoring, census and study of the black grouse and improvement of its habitats.
Mature forest conservation agreement with theSèlvans Association. Support for medical studies of the benefits of mature forests on human health.
Commitment to the conservation of the Bonelli's eagle and the Mediterranean turtle in Garraf.
Universities
Autonomous University of BArcelona
We have just signed a collaboration agreement for a research project with the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
The study focuses on the impact of horses on the flora and vegetation of Garraf and how they choose plants according to seasonality and their health.
We have already signed a framework collaboration agreement with the UAB, with the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. The Foundation has received veterinary students to do field work, ethological observation of horses, postgraduate studies, etc.
More information on Final degree project in Environmental Sciences (TFG) 2023-2024 at this link: fundaciomiranda.org/tfg-uab
Universitat de Barcelona
We work with the concept of Resilience and how nature is a positive, essential resource for people.
We collaborate on the Master's in Pedagogy.
Universitat de Lleida
We are in talks to open a collaboration with the University of Lleida in the veterinary area.
Universitat de Girona
We have just signed an internship agreement to receive students from the Master's in Equine Therapy.
Research projects
Botanical composition of the diet of free-ranging horses in the Garraf Natural Park: Implications for the prevention of forest fires – Enllaç
Garraf Park | Research group
This Research Group arises from a shared initiative between the Parc del Garraf and the Miranda Foundation, in order to extract the maximum knowledge and data from the herds' stay in the Park. The study has been and continues to be carried out on the group of 7 Pottoka ponies and the two herds of 31 horses that spent the winters of 2018 and 2019 in the Park.
Study objects
Impact and transformation of pasture with the introduction of horses.
Impact on flora. Decrease in combustible plant mass and especially the carç or carritx, a species that has colonized the entire Mediterranean steppe of Garraf.
Water flow rates from springs and water consumption by horses.
Census of old livestock structures and roads.
Registration, using GPS, of the movements of the Foundation's different herds and linking these movements and most frequented areas to various factors (horse behavior).
Veterinary degree final thesis
Author: Julia Casamada of February
Tutor: Pere Miquel Parés i Casanova
Double degree in Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science and Production
Universitat de Lleida
Academic year 2019 – 2020
Enllaç
Horse ethology | Natural communication
The life of the horses of the Miranda Foundation, in herds and in freedom and in large natural spaces, generates a unique opportunity in our country. of observation and study of the horse (ethology), who they are and how they live.
In summer, the Foundation's horses move freely and graze in herds across the 103 hectares of Pla de l'Orri, constituting the Catllaràs horse reserve (Serra de Catllaràs, Protected Area of Natural Interest) in Alt Berguedà.
During the winter months, when the grass stops growing due to the arrival of cold and snow, the Foundation's horses can continue to graze on the 400 hectares of the Garraf Natural Park and the 600 adjacent hectares ceded from private properties.
We also have temporary use properties in Avinyó and Montserrat.
At the end of autumn, we organize transhumance, an activity open to the public, to accompany the herds from the Pyrenees to the lowlands, fleeing the cold to find these warmer lands where they can graze during the winter.
In mid-spring we return with the horses to Pla de l'Orri to spend the summer on the high mountain pasture.
Training
Creating a bond of trust with the Horse
How to become friends with a horse based on knowledge of its ethology, but transcending it and creating bonds of friendship and trust.
Natural communication and NEC (Natural Equine Connexion©)
Achieve a good relationship with the horse based on trust and understanding through foot-to-ground communication and conscious riding with balance, coordination and body awareness, barefoot and bitless (without irons).
Understand their behavior and how they learn through their natural language.
Detect psychophysical problems, how they make us aware of them, and how to help solve and avoid them with knowledge of their biomechanics.
Horse ethology
Study of their behavior in the natural environment.
Natural maintenance of the helmet
Horse welfare
The essence of the Horse
Day of observing horses in freedom.
Contact with the herds.
- Why facilitate the social life of horses in herds?
- How are groups formed? Social behavior and structure. How do they communicate with each other? What are their needs?
- The philosophy of horses versus the philosophy of humans. Why adapt to their way of life to create a bond?
- To ride or not to ride? Human interaction, activities, bonds and communication.
- How horses learn and how to create human-horse interaction without breaking their essence and nature.
Protocol for the welfare of horses from the Miranda Foundation Enllaç
Leaflet: Exploitation of equidae for non-commercial purposes – Enllaç