El Maderal auctions the harvesting of stone pine cones for the 2026-2027 campaign

The City Council of El Maderal has called for a public auction for the disposal of the harvesting of stone pine cones (Pinus pinea) on municipally owned plots during the 2026-2027 annual period, with a base tender budget of 2,000.00 euros. The call was approved by a Mayoral resolution, which gave the green light to the procurement file and the specific administrative clauses document, and was published in the Official Gazette of the Province of Zamora No. 132, dated November 11, 2026, in section III. Local Administration, under the official reference R-202602527.

The announcement, electronically signed by the Mayor on November 10, 2026, opens the period for forestry companies and individuals to bid for a resource that this municipality in the Aliste region has been liquidating season after season through auction.

Private contract with award to the highest price

The operation is classified as a private contract in accordance with Article 9 of Law 9/2017, of November 8, on Public Sector Contracts, as it involves the disposal of a patrimonial resource and not the provision of services. The chosen procedure is a public auction, and the sole award criterion will be the best price offered upwards, without other technical or environmental aspects being evaluated.

The economic conditions set in the specifications are as follows:

• Base tender budget (auction starting price): 2,000.00 euros.
• Final guarantee: 5% of the final award price, excluding VAT.
• Contract duration: from November 15, 2026, to April 15, 2027.
• Object: disposal of the patrimonial resource consisting of the harvesting of stone pine cones on municipal plots.

The contracting authority is the City Council of El Maderal, located at Plaza Mayor, number 1, C.P. 49719, El Maderal (Zamora); telephone and fax 980 575 523 and email ayuntamiento@elmaderal.es.

Fifty-two plots distributed across two polygons

The harvesting extends over a total of 52 municipally owned plots, most of them small in size and scattered throughout the district, which requires the awardees to organize the collection across two different cadastral polygons:

• Polygon 1: 44 plots, including numbers 31, 51, 61, 64, 65, 71, 134, 164, 197, 206, 229, 272, 359, 364, 367, 458, 507, 510, 573, 581, 615, 634, 700, 715, 754, 810, 820, 846, 850, 889, 906, 923, 931, 946, 953, 956, 957, 1125, 1228, 5326, 5327, 5328, 5329, and 5330.
• Polygon 2: 8 plots, numbers 25, 27, 71, 160, 198, 199, 205, and 213.

The dispersion of the plots, with references reaching up to 5330 in the first polygon, is an element to be considered by bidders when calculating travel and collection costs during the five-month campaign.

Fifteen-day deadline and two-envelope bids

Proposals are submitted in two sealed envelopes—Envelope A “Administrative Documentation” and Envelope B “Economic Offer”—strictly adhering to the official templates of the specifications. The submission period is fifteen calendar days starting from the day following the publication of the announcement in the provincial bulletin, that is, from November 12, 2026.

Delivery can be made in person at the municipal offices at Plaza Mayor, 1, from 9:00 to 13:00 hours, on Mondays and Wednesdays. The administrative clauses specifications and the rest of the case documentation are available to interested parties at the municipal offices and on the City Council’s electronic headquarters.

Regional precedent in the pine cone bidding

This is not the first auction of this type in the province. In the Official Gazette of the Province of Zamora no. 115, dated October 2, 2026, the Peñausende City Council called for another bid for the harvesting of pine cones from the Public Utility Forest no. 71, “Cabeza Roya y Agregados,” covering 185.77 hectares, with an estimated amount of 20,000 kilos of pine cones and a valuation of 5,000 euros. The comparison illustrates the difference in scale between both harvests: El Maderal starts from a rate of 2,000 euros and small-surface plots compared to a cataloged forest of nearly 186 hectares.

The closing of the deadline and the award to the highest price will determine the municipal income for this campaign, a relevant resource for the coffers of a small city council and, at the same time, a business opportunity for forestry companies and pine cone collectors in the Aliste region, who face the harvest in a calendar that begins barely four days after the publication of the announcement.

Source: Official Gazette of the Province of Zamora, no. 132, dated November 11, 2026, section III. Local Administration, pp. 25-26 (official reference: R-202602527).