Pagoeta

At 1,335 hectares, Pagoeta is the smallest of the Basque natural parks. It lies in the municipality of Aia, in Gipuzkoa, a very short distance from the coast at Zarautz and Orio, and was declared in 1998. Its name refers to the beech (pagoa in Basque), the species that gives its character to Mount Pagoeta and to much of its slopes, in a mosaic where beech and oak woods alternate with meadows, farmsteads and Atlantic countryside still in use.

The park is a clear example of a cultural landscape: human activity here is inseparable from the natural value. Its most notable heritage feature is the ironworking and milling complex of Agorregi, a water-powered forge restored and put back into operation alongside its mills, which shows how the energy of water was used to work iron. Nearby stands the Iturraran farmhouse, of the eighteenth century, which houses an ethnographic exhibition and serves as a visitor centre, and the Iturraran Botanical Garden, with a broad collection of woody species that works as a gateway to the park and as a teaching resource.

The limestone substrate of part of the area has generated cavities and shafts, some of interest for bats. The proximity of the sea softens the climate and allows forest, farmed and rocky environments to coexist within a very small space, with a typically Atlantic forest fauna: woodpeckers, forest raptors, roe deer, wild boar and amphibians tied to the park's streams and brooks.