Doñana and the law of the strongest

Aerial view of a water catchment and two ponds between greenhouses in Lucena del Puerto, Huelva.

One of the most controversial areas and one that is contributing to the deterioration of the Doñana aquifer. Paco Puentes

I write these lines to vent as a citizen stunned by the reality that every day runs over us.

He could do it in a more technical way, as head of the Doñana Biological Station, the CSIC research center that, together with other actors, managed to protect Doñana in the middle of the last century.

However, I am going to limit myself to my sensations and feelings.

The Doñana of today is very different from that of the beginning of the 20th century.

After decades of intense activity to dry it out and put it into cultivation, we now only have a third of what it was.

Today, the pressure exerted by our activity outside the protected area is so strong that we are rapidly losing emblematic habitats such as lagoons, which numbered in the thousands, to waterfowl, which flocked by the hundreds of thousands to spend the day. winter or to reproduce, or natural monuments as valuable as the hundred-year-old cork oaks that are dying by the dozens, victims of lack of water.

Doñana is passing a point of no return that will mean that the Doñana of the future will no longer be the one that, in its day, we tried to preserve.

Sadness.

I find out from the press, like any ordinary citizen, that, once again, a bill in the Parliament of Andalusia intends to expand the legalized irrigated area by modifying the Special Plan for the management of irrigated areas located north of the forest crown of Doñana, popularly known as Plan de la Fresa, and the Forest Law of Andalusia.

It still amazes me that these things happen.

More information

Government and environmentalists charge against the new Andalusian law of the PP and Vox for the "outrage" in Doñana

The Strawberry Plan, approved in 2014 after seven years of complex processing, tried to bring order to two decades of disorderly expansion of intensive crops under plastic, in which thousands of hectares were cultivated, many of them without the necessary permits, occupying forest land and in many cases stealing a scarce public good such as water for private purposes.

The plan identified the cultivated areas that could be regularized because they were within the regulations, which would have to be supplied with surface water in order to close their wells, and marked those areas that could not be legalized and should be restored to their previous situation.

We are in 2023 and that plan that would eliminate most of the water consumption from the aquifer has not yet been executed.

Now they are trying to modify the rules so that practically all of the companies that have been operating illegally can continue to do so.

This means burying the work done so far, and a new beginning of the entire administrative procedure.

It is evident that, if this happens, in 20 years we will continue as we are now, halfway there, but having lost part of what remains of the old Doñana today.

The political philosophy of seeing only the short term, that in four years everyone will be bald, fills me with despair.

With water, the outlook is not rosy, there is more and more demand and less water available.

This summer is going to be great, and not only in Doñana.

We are already in meteorological spring and at the moment the forecasts do not warn us of an upcoming deluge, which is what we need.

If April does not remedy it, we are facing a catastrophic summer for agriculture and with consumption restrictions in numerous locations.

This is what overexploits the aquifers on which the supply from streams and sources depends.

Fear.

In recent decades we have lost traditional sustainable agriculture, where olive groves were dry, cultivated among the trees and where cattle grazed at the end of summer.

Today we have industrial olive groves without biodiversity, which have bankrupted the traditional ones by increasing production and competing with lower prices.

Farmers now get into debt and work harder to try to earn the same as before.

Industrial agriculture depends on dwindling surface water due to climate change, on groundwater that we are running out of, and on oil in the form of diesel and gas in the form of fertilizers that sooner or later are going to run out.

Distress.

Restrictions on water consumption

The urgency of initiating a reconversion of the demand for water for agriculture, industry and urban consumption is evident, including the tens of millions of tourists who come to Spain and who also demand water.

The restrictions on consumption should start now, so that the blow is not so hard and to adapt to what is coming our way.

This year many farmers in the Guadalquivir basin are going to go bankrupt.

Grief.

Meanwhile, in Doñana, the region is deceived with false promises that will not be fulfilled for two reasons: legally it cannot be done and, most emphatically, there is not enough water.

The consequence is that everything will remain the same, we will continue producing strawberries until the water runs out or nobody wants Spanish strawberries anymore, with the consequences that this will have for the agricultural industry in the area.

Meanwhile, we will have lost the heart and soul of Doñana.

Everything will remain the same on a path of accelerated destruction.

Injustice.

I have no doubt that everyone wants to protect Doñana.

The question is which Doñana we want to preserve and here, in view of events, it is evident that there are divergent opinions.

On one side are those who only want to maintain Doñana as a

medium capable of attracting tourists and giving international renown to a region and its products and services.

On the other hand, there are those who believe that this must be a consequence of the intrinsic environmental values ​​that have historically characterized it.

Whatever we do, Doñana will continue to be there, although perhaps only as an impoverished and simplified place, a memory of what it was.

It depends on us.

Most people think of nature as weak, a helpless victim to people who are invincible.

Let's not fool ourselves, nature is much stronger than us.

Doñana is nothing more than the canary in the mine that warns us of what is coming to all of us.

Sooner or later we will have to change our way of using nature to adapt to the conditions it imposes on us.

There is no other option, we are completely dependent on it.

Eloy Revilla

is a CSIC Research Professor and director of the Doñana-CSIC Biological Station.

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