Europe prevents Andalusia from reducing a protected area in El Ejido due to an endangered bush

The European Commission has prevented Andalusia from reducing the Artos de El Ejido protected area because the Board lacks scientific evidence to justify the reduction of this Site of Community Interest (SCI) located in Almería.

The Andalusian Government (PP and Citizens) demanded that the Commission declassify 75 hectares protected for their high ecological value (28% of the LIC, of ​​264 hectares), but Brussels has denied the initiative "for not providing any scientific evidence for the declassification of affected land”, underlines the letter from the head of unit of the European Directorate General for the Environment, Nicola Notaro, addressed to the Andalusian Board.

Since the LICs were born three decades ago to preserve the most valuable natural habitats on the continent, certain autonomous communities have asked the Government to correct the limits of these spaces, but on very few occasions has a region requested the declassification of protected land.

This is one of them, but without success after the Commission's door slammed against the claim of the Andalusian Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development.

The letter with the refusal of the European Commission is dated last March, but it has now transpired because Ecologists in Action initiated a legal procedure -in progress- against the order of the Board to discontinue the LIC, to which said official letter was recently incorporated. .

The ecological value of the Artos de El Ejido -recognized as SCI in 2006- is in the artineras, plant formations up to four meters high and 10 meters in diameter of arto (

), an endangered species preserved in the Campo region de Dalías (Almería), patches of land in Murcia and to a lesser extent in the Valencian Community.

The artineras of El Ejido, defined as “fertility islands”, are the best example of the climactic scrub in a semi-arid ecosystem unique in the world, and act as a refuge for other plants and birds such as the stone curlew, the scientists underline.

Huge specimen of artinera, razed by the City Council of El Ejido in 2000. CREDIT BY ECOLOGISTS IN ACTION

Despite its ecological value and the supposed protection it enjoys, the expansion of greenhouses in Almería has accelerated their disappearance: today the artineras only occupy 115 hectares, barely 5% of their extension in the Dalías field (Almería) 70 years ago. years.

Plastic has taken over the natural environment and agricultural entrepreneurs have uprooted one specimen after another to replace them with intensive cultivation of vegetables and fruits.

“Between 1957 and 2011, more than 26,000 hectares of the area occupied by the arto populations in Spain have been lost due to human causes, and the artinera patches have atomized the landscape (…) They are on the verge of collapse due to the systematic occupation of its habitat due to agricultural and urban uses”, 19 researchers and scientists from the Experimental Station for Arid Zones, belonging to the CSIC, and different universities, such as Almería and Exeter (United Kingdom), warned a year and a half ago.

The scientists warned in their report of the "dizzying elimination" of the artos.

The professor of biodiversity and ecosystems, Javier Cabello, points out that these arborescent thickets (very tall) are in danger of extinction in the Iberian southeast, they reveal the historical connections with the African continent and are unique in all of Europe.

“Their distribution area fully coincides with intensive agriculture and both compete for space and groundwater.

Farmers have been cutting specimens so that in practice it is more difficult to apply the catalog of threatened species.

The Administration trivializes the protected spaces, granted democratically for the conservation of biodiversity”.

View of El Ejido, surrounded by the sea of ​​plastic greenhouses.

PACO PUENTES (THE COUNTRY)

The agricultural businessmen cleared the land protected by the LIC already in the year 2000 to build their greenhouses, and even counted on the active destruction of the El Ejido City Hall, governed by Juan Enciso (PP), whose workers destroyed large areas of artineras, having already been proposed by Spain to the Commission as a protected area, and despite the complaint by the organization Ecologistas en Acción.

In 2002, a group of farmers went to court to challenge the urban planning plan for El Ejido, which reflected the protection proposed to the European Commission, and in 2008 the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Andalusian High Court of Justice -presided over by the Judge Rafael Puya gave them the reason to ignore their ecological protection.

In 2020, 12 years after that ruling, the Andalusian Board issued an order to partially discontinue the LIC, based on the resolution of the magistrates.

Despite the allegations of different groups with solid scientific reports that advised the protection of the natural habitat, the Autonomous Executive ignored them and published said order on October 1, 2020 to reduce the LIC.

Given the lack of legal protection of the land, Ecologists in Action denounced the order of the Board before the courts a year ago.

In its defense, the Board argued before the judges of the TSJA that it was not protecting the land because other judges -from the same Contentious-administrative chamber- had agreed with the farmers in 2008. The procedure of the Andalusian high court is ongoing, but outside the judicial field, a year ago, the European Commission set foot on the wall and clarified that the Spanish justice system had exceeded its limits and could not ignore the protection imposed by the European Executive.

“The TSJA did not establish that the areas in question were not necessary for habitat conservation.

It limited itself to declaring that the farms referred to in the sentences are irrigated agricultural areas,”

A backhoe from the City Council of El Ejido, in the midst of destroying artineras during the year 2000. CREDIT BY ECOLOGISTS IN ACTION

Ecologists in Action now trusts that the Andalusian justice will correct the regional government and annul the order to leave the place unprotected.

"The Board has proposed the declassification with a clear and flagrant breach of its obligations to protect and restore the LIC that it itself had proposed [16 years earlier]," criticizes the conservation organization's lawyer, Abel La Calle.

The Andalusian Minister for Sustainable Development, Carmen Crespo, was mayor of Adra between 2003 and 2011, a municipality located just 20 kilometers from the community protected area.

One year after the letter from the European Commission, the Andalusian Ministry has not yet responded to the request, confirm sources from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, a necessary intermediary for communications between the Commission and the European regions.

Asked by this newspaper, the Ministry refuses to clarify whether it plans to preserve the artineras after the setback in Europe.

At the end of his letter, Notaro asked the Board for a response to recover and restore the land, and thus minimize the impact of the greenhouses: "I invite the competent Spanish authorities to explain what measures they have adopted to prevent the deterioration of the place, as required by the Habitats Directive, and what measures they will take to restore it.

I urge the authorities to urgently seek adequate legal means to guarantee the designation, protection and restoration of LIC Artos de El Ejido.”

A year later, Notaro is still without a response from the Andalusian Government, which has a green revolution underway led by its president, Juan Manuel Moreno.

Greenhouses in the mountains on the outskirts of El Ejido. PACO PUENTES (EL PAÍS)

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