Jesus Contreras, the inside guide to wildlife in Almeria

Posted by ambersol ⋅ 15 August 2011 ⋅ 3 Comments

Filed Under culture, easy, history, photography, walking, wildlife

1. Tell us a bit about yourself.

Born in Almeria, at the Mediterranean side in 1965. I have lived all my life here, in these sunny lands that I so much love. Did not go to High School understanding that knowledge was not really there, but outside the human built places. So I began to learn about Nature around us. I worked in a big company looking for money for more than ten years, but finally I rediscovered myself here, in the land where I was born, where my parents and grandparents were born and lived also. I am married with no children, always reading, writing and investigating about Almeria and about science….

Nowadays, I run a small company by myself that is half for earning money and half for educational and conservation goals. It is based on geographical training trips for high-schools and nature observation and understanding for general or specialized visitors of other countries.

I am activities coordinator for the Environmental Dept. of Almerian Studies Institute so am also a member of other societies that works positively around this land; also a volunteer in the Red Cross institution, working to directly help to people with necessity. And of course, a impassioned field Nature observer and field ornithologist. In love also with Nature Photography, although I do not believe in this as an art, but as a valuable tool oriented to education and investigation.

2. What do you hope to achieve?

I have achieved in my life everything I looked for; at first time it was to be free, far away of great companies that I hated so much. At a second point I achieved being able to live in Almeria, growing here as an adult and later becoming honorably old here. This has been not easy, while other people of my generation went out to other places looking for a “better” life. I got the option of being not rich in foreign lands… but happy at home.

Nowadays I am working on international sustainable tourism, so I want strongly to achieve the goal of seing Almerian land as a sustainable destiny for international birdwatching and geographical trips, so that my young locals must not go away to other countries looking for a job. My compromise is working about this internationalization about this nice land that is Almeria, in Southern Spain.

3. What do you enjoy most about living in this area?

When you live in the place that you were born, you just enjoy everything at any moment. But I especially enjoy Nature, our special way of life, our arid landscape sun-bathed most part of year. We have here everything… from snow and high mountains to desert and sea protected areas in no more than 50 kilometers around us.

Almeria is the most mountainous province in Spain, so habitats are so varied and different, so as weather and culture, but I especially enjoy two places that are sacred for me: one is the Filabres Mountains where I am managing some projects, and the other is the Cabo de Gata Natural Park. Two sanctuaries for life, culture and humankind.

4. Tell us something about Almeria.

Almeria was some millions of years the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Nowadays a part of the main continent on Europe, the land has on it the step of all these geo-morphological processes, so its badlands areas configure all places here. This was the perfect scenario for a well known filming Italian director named Sergio Leone, for running films cheaper than in the USA. So Almeria became famous with films locations also well known as “For A Fistful Of Dollars” or “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly”, “Conan the Barbarian” or “Mad Max” and much more…

Also Almeria has a long running history about pirates in the coast, when the Moorish population was expelled out of Spain in the XVIIth Century. This is a long and nice story that I share with visitors and clients. I could also talk about Almeria is not a desert by itself because of its landscape diversity, so visitors are generally amazed in some visited places as marshes, wetlands, snow-lands or lakes in the middle of nowhere.

5. How can people get in touch with you / find out more?

The best way to contact me is through my mail address indalodeoz@indalodeoz.com or at indalodeoz@gmail.com

For additional info about me or Almeria (in Spanish and English) you can visit:

http://www.oz-nature-wildlife-guide.com/