- Camí de la Comella a Sobirà, 17733 Albanyà, Catalunya Espanya42º20'8''N 2º36'9''E
The space of Natural Interest of Alta Garrotxa is a geographic unit quite well delimited which it is on horseback between the regions of the Ripollés, the Garrotxa and the Empordà. It is a vast region of the Oriental PrePyrennes, with 400km2 of which 32.865 hectares are protected by the Plan of Spaces of Natural Interest (PEIN) and the Network Nature 2000, and having been declared a Place of Community Importance and Zone of Special Protection by the Birds.
The zone’s relief is of calcareous type and presents a marked rugged character, with the predominance of the deep valleys, surrounded by cliffs and walls of rock. This tortuous relief is the one which gives name to the space: the “garrotxes” are “rough earths and of bad footprint”. The landscape of Alta Garrotxa is truly spectacular, not only by the magnificence of the terrain, but also by his forest cover, dominated by holm oak and oak.
The Alta Garrotxa have, besides, with an important wealth refering to cultural heritage: archaeological sites, farms, villages, hermitages, coalmines… They are dispersed by all the territory and bring to light the importance that have had the human settlements and the traditional activities, agricultural, graziers of this zone.
The space has suffered, since the fifties, a depopulation and abandonment process of the territory caused by the survival difficulties in the mountain, by the devaluation of the coal like energetic resource and by the attraction of the industries located to the valley of the Fluvià.
Today, it is a space where coexist activities like the hiking and the rural tourism, jointly with the development of other activities tied to the use of the natural resources by the local population.