Our petition
The Andalusian popular parliamentary group, together with Vox and Ciudadanos, has presented to the Andalusian Parliament a bill that would grant amnesty to illegal irrigation in the Doñana area.
SEO/BirdLife denounces the proposal as a new aggression against the natural area of Doñana, as it favours the proliferation of irrigation and goes against international, European, national and regional legislation. If approved by the Andalusian Parliament, the measure would aggravate the current process of extinction of Doñana.
We consider that this proposal should be rejected, refocusing political approaches towards criteria that provide sustainability to agricultural development in Doñana, giving priority to the protection of the National Park, and that are in line with contexts within the framework of ecological transition, hydrological regeneration, adaptation to climate change and the environmental sensitivity of European consumers.
In addition to active policies that promote true conservation of Doñana, we ask the Andalusian Parliament to debate and approve a motion that urges the Spanish Government to declare the coastal lagoons - present in Doñana - the first endangered habitat in the country.
Doñana, in danger of disappearing
According to our data, 90% of Spain's coastal lagoons are suffering serious problems that put their future at risk. Doñana represents 28% of this habitat, of which other large lagoons in serious danger, such as the Mar Menor or L'Albufera de Valencia, are also examples.
The declaration that the coastal lagoons of Doñana are in danger of disappearing is not only the recognition of a situation that has been confirmed for too long, but also a turning point that generates obligations for all the competent public administrations to ensure their conservation.
"The Andalusian Parliament should not devote time and resources to debate a proposal with very serious effects on one of the jewels of Andalusian, Spanish and European biodiversity, and on the local communities around it. We call on parliamentarians to focus their efforts on activating serious policies that guarantee the conservation of Doñana, and to urge the Spanish government to ensure that this area, along with the rest of the country's coastal lagoons, are recognised as endangered areas," says Carlos Davila, head of SEO/BirdLife's Doñana Technical Office.
The proposal ignores the fact that the aquifer has been declared overexploited by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge due to the ecological state of the protected area, and goes against all the scientific literature on the extreme deterioration that the National Park is suffering. A situation recognised, according to technical and scientific reports, by all national environmental administrations, the IUCN, the Ramsar Convention and UNESCO, as well as in the agreements signed by the Doñana Participation Council itself.
We also recall that the EU Court of Justice condemned Spain last June for failing to take into account the illegal wells and for not having adopted measures to prevent the alterations to the protected habitats that caused the aquifer to dry up.
The greatest threat to Doñana
Water management in the Doñana area is currently the greatest threat to the conservation of its natural values in the short, medium and long term. "A real commitment is needed to establish a holistic approach on a river basin scale, and at the same time harmonise all social, agricultural, tourist and cultural uses with ecological aspects, not only in the natural area but also in its immediate surroundings, including areas of the territory without legal protection that could lead to the deterioration of the quantity and quality of groundwater, as well as directly dependent terrestrial ecosystems and wetlands," says Davila.
A risk for the agricultural sector itself
Furthermore, European consumers have not been taken into consideration when drafting this proposal. We must not forget that, at the end of the day, all this supposed agricultural and socio-economic development that this bill is trying to promote hinges on consumers who are increasingly interested in the environmental traceability of the products they buy. However, in the text of this proposal, no mention is made of consumers, a decisive part of the food chain in the soft fruit sector, who will surely not understand this way of promoting the sustainable development of one of the areas with the greatest environmental repercussions for the conservation of our natural heritage.
Commitments that SEO/BirdLife asks the administrations to make
- To declare the coastal lagoons as the first habitat in danger of disappearing in Spain.
- To ensure the definitive closure of all illegal exploitations that affect the state of the aquifer, with a timetable, a budget and sanctions included, and to set up a programme of continuous monitoring in the medium to long term to prevent a similar situation.
- Commit to establish a comprehensive control and inspection plan with the aim of deterring illegal abstractions.
- Cancel any planned new concessions, at least as a precautionary principle, until it is ensured that water bodies and their associated ecosystems are not deteriorated.
- Ensure the justification of all wells to be regularised and assess their impact on the ecological status of water bodies.
- Ensure that 100% of legal wells establish consumption control systems, coupled with a pricing policy that encourages a reduction in consumption and that assumes the recovery of the costs of the Water Framework Directive, including environmental costs.
- Establish irrigation control with global criteria for the whole aquifer and not individual ones, which is regulated by means of a global exploitation system that adapts to the annual availability of water resources, supported by irrigation communities.
- Implement a management and restructuring plan for the entire agricultural sector in the area surrounding the protected natural area, making its development truly dependent on the long-term conservation of Doñana's habitats and species: with maximum areas, maximum extractions, and the relocation of farms located in the most fragile areas due to their environmental interest in order to improve the functioning of water resources.
environmental interest for the improvement of water functioning. This involves adjusting public and private allocations to the real availability of water and limiting the use of resources in order to respect the water supply regime required by the ecosystems.
- Implement a plan to review and relocate the pressure caused by water abstractions in tourist facilities, especially in the urbanisation of Matalascañas.
- Ensure that official measures are published in the hydrological planning to adjust to the annual pluviometric reality the flooding period, the transverse movement of water and the water balance of groundwater bodies.
- Ensure the commitment to present a medium-long term plan that avoids the dependence of the natural area on water transfers.
- Elimination of all eucalyptus plantations, even if they are located outside protected areas, which have not been eliminated and which indirectly affect the recovery of the lagoons fed by the aquifer.
- Draw up and approve the management plan for the protected areas of the Doñana Natura 2000 Network, which includes an assessment of the state of conservation of habitats and species in the natural area, measures and monitoring in relation to the obligations set out in European directives and basic state legislation.
- Identify the ecological and water requirements of the habitats and species of the Natura 2000 Network areas for their immediate incorporation into the Hydrological Plan of the Guadalquivir River Basin District 2022-2027, especially in relation to the definition of minimum and maximum flow regimes, seasonal regimes and the necessary generating flow (or ranges) for aquatic species and habitats linked to water to achieve their conservation objective.