Objectives

1- In the first place, the organization of educational events, with the aim of making the educational community, try to make it valued and preserved.

2- Add the environmental importance it deserves to the city of Cáceres, well known and renowned as a World Heritage City for its architectural and historical values.

3- Promote sustainable uses of the territory, with little environmental impacts and high educational value and health improvement. 

4- Ensuring the conservation of biodiversity and the ecosystems that are included in it.

5- Recognize and value the highly profitable tourism resources in terms of economy and environmental conservation, and not only industrial or speculative ones.

6- Offer alternatives to the complementary tourist offer in which nature and its conservation, as well as education about its importance, constitute the fundamental pillars, following models of recognized importance and positive impact on the local economy.

Tourist review

Many of the inhabitants of the city and the surrounding villages are aware of the importance it has, but many others don’t know it, which encourages us to try to share visions and knowledge about these values. Historical evolution and studies in this regard shows the value and the advantages of: a life in contact with nature, the practice of physical activity in nature, the learning and psychosocial development of childhood in contact with nature, the maintenance of biodiversity, forest, agricultural and livestock use with native species, nature conservation.

We are in an enclave with different paths a few minutes from Cáceres.

The ecotourist defines the visitor who seeks to enjoy nature and natural spaces from the most absolute respect without altering the balance of the environment and aspires to combine tourism and ecology.

In the case of the Sierra de la Mosca, the guide recommends as essential, the contemplation of the panoramic views from the sanctuary of the patron saint, and enjoy with the cork oaks, the sighting of griffon vultures and rabilargos or enjoy the heady smell of the jara in spring.

Ecological review

Ecologically, it is a wooded island immersed in an extensive plain of grasslands and crops, hoarding on its slopes an exceptional redoubt of natural habitats that centuries ago also covered much of the plains and other mountains.

This space, recovered by the people of Cáceres in recent years, is the source and origin of life in Cáceres.

There are five minutes between the city center and the corridor that borders the Sierra de la Mosca. It goes towards the Portanchito peak, offering us just 2 kilometers of images of a fantastic Mediterranean forest. 

The predominant vegetation is holm oaks and cork oaks, which in some areas are alternated with pastures and even olive groves. In other areas, they formed dense spots of Mediterranean forest.

On the slopes of solana, olive trees, broom, gorse, chaste, coscojas, cornicabras and labiérnagos are more frequent, while those of the shaded spot, dominate the strawberry trees, durillos, cervical jaws and heather (red and white).

Environmental review

In this mountain range surrounded by the Plains of Cáceres and Sierra de Fuentes, there is a protected area with category of ZEPA (zone of special protection of birds) and ZEC (zone of special conservation). The oak pastures of the low zones are alternated, around the olive groves and grasslands near the urban centers. There are cork oaks with little use and higher density of low forest, more sclerophyllous in the solana than in the shaded part, passing through important specimens of pine trees, arbutus and lentisks, of ages and very big dimensions, as well as the chestnut of the upper basin of the Valhondo Stream.

In it, the characteristic elements of the Mediterranean ecosystem are well represented, as they could occur in Protected Spaces as relevant as the Monfragüe National Park or the SPA of the neighboring Sierra de San Pedro (which provide shelter for the largest number of pairs of imperial Eagles and black vultures of the Peninsula). Thus, while walking through shady cork oaks, different jaras, labiérnagos or olivillas, madroños, ... it is easy to observe griffon vultures, some blacks and vultures, always kites, rock planes, swifts, warblers, rabilargos, ... or you can walk between boars of wild boar, or rocky gendarmes where quartzites emerge, showing the Appalachian relief of the Villuercas.

In the surroundings, we can find a lot of other places of ecological interest, as it’s characteristic in Extremadura, some of which enjoy some level of environmental protection are the ZEPAS of the Monumental City of Cáceres or the house of La Enjarada (for its Cernícalos Primilla), the Arenales and the Barruecos, lake areas with overflowing spring life, the Salor, Tamuja and Almonte rivers, the Los Barruecos Natural Monument, ... and, of course, as we mentioned at the beginning, the ZEPA of the Llanos de Cáceres and Sierra de Fuentes, where among the steppe, numerous birds perform their functions in a large internationally recognized community.

The unique high area of the Llanos de Cáceres.

 To the southeast of Cáceres, between the capital and the town of Sierra de Fuentes, It stands a wooded area known as the Sierra de la Mosca, which we easily identify as being the highest area of ​​the Llanos de Cáceres.

The Sierra de la Mosca is a mountain range of about 2300 hectares. From east to west,

they form the area with the highest elevations of the Sinclinal of Cáceres, formed by materials

from the Precambrian and Paleozoic. And already in the lowest zone of the southern slope,

limestones of the Carboniferous are located. The Sierra de la Mosca extends along about 8 kms

between Cáceres and Sierra de Fuentes, which includes the Sierra del Portanchito (with the peak

of the same name of 640 m altitude); and the Sierra del Risco (with the highest altitude in The

Risco, 664 m), located between the urban centers of Cáceres and Sierra de Fuentes.

It is important that the environmental value of Cáceres need to be well known. The Sierra de la

Mosca offers a natural scenario of learning, recreation, observation, ... with high values, natural and

anthropological. It constitutes a magnificent sample of Mediterranean ecosystems, more or less

anthropized (transformed by the human being), which It makes Cáceres a unique province capital.

The Sierra de la Mosca overlooks Cáceres from the viewpoint of the sanctuary of the Virgen de la

Montaña, the patron saint of the city, and It’s the best balcony to observe the capital from its 718

meters altitude.