Scientists warn of the "unsustainable critical point" suffered by Doñana and ask to stop the law of the Andalusian right

Doñana's biodiversity is going through its worst moment in decades.

The current balance of scientists is devastating and reflects with data the very low level of the aquifer, the disappearance of more than half of its wetlands, and its direct effect on the death of its fauna and trees.

The Doñana CSIC Biological Station has presented its most recent conclusions at the Participation Council held this Monday, in which it has denounced the "unsustainable critical point" that the reserve is going through due to the "executive inaction" of politicians.

The experts have demanded that the Andalusian right (PP and Vox) withdraw their bill to increase intensive agricultural irrigation near the park, for lying and creating "false expectations".

The scientists have tried to spend their last bullet to make the popular and far-right deputies reflect before they vote this Wednesday in the Andalusian Parliament on the start of the processing of their bill, which will go urgently and could be approved At the end of june.

After criticism from the Government, which does not rule out denouncing the regional law for invading its powers before the Constitutional Court, and the threat from the European Commission, which has warned Spain of the risk of millions in fines for failing to protect Doñana, now science clarifies why the political initiative will aggravate the environmental deterioration of the reserve: "A childish dialectic is used, of good and bad, which only seeks to confront different parts of society, using absurd messages such as that the water from the rivers that reaches the sea is loses, or that the conservation of the environment is necessarily opposed to economic activity”, reads the report presented by the director of the Biological Station, Eloy Revilla.The opinion of the scientists is very relevant because it may be the one that the European Commission relies on to ask the Court of Justice of the EU to fine Spain for failing to protect the park.

The president of the Doñana Participation Council, the biologist Miguel Delibes, has also charged this Monday against the bill: “It is very negative, it only generates tension and feeds the conflict.

It means playing political games that are similar to bullfighting, when a dramatic situation like the one we are experiencing in Doñana requires taking things seriously, grabbing the bull by the horns, making probably unpopular decisions, spending money and working, the complete opposite of make legal proposals that cannot be fulfilled”, informs Europa Press.

Santa Olalla Lagoon, in Doñana, dried up last August.

IMAGE BANK OF THE EBD/CSIC (IMAGE BANK OF THE EBD/CSIC)

The legalization of more than 1,500 hectares of illegal strawberry greenhouses, proposed by the right two months before the municipal elections, means increasing pressure in an area where extreme drought, the constant theft of water with illegal wells and the macro-urbanization of Matalascañas They have sunk the aquifer to levels never seen before.

The Junta alleges that its new bill –unlike last year's, which declined due to the regional elections– will not allow extraction from the aquifer, but it will make irrigable land that today is not irrigable and will open the door for hundreds of of farmers claim surface water from the Hydrographic Confederation, despite the scarcity and the dark prospects predicted by climate change.

The scientists conclude that the health of Doñana is in a critical phase while the demand for water for red fruits continues to rise after increasing greenhouses from 2,162 hectares in 2004 to 3,543 in 2014. Given the constant looting of water, the aquifer is overexploited and its water table has dropped to 5 and 6 meters in piezometers such as Ojillo and Mogea, "with values ​​lower than those of 1995", the historical minimum.

As the aquifer descends, surface lagoons disappear at high speed and 59% of the largest lagoons – with more than 900 square meters – have not flooded since 2013, according to the latest published scientific study.

In addition, 19% of the 267 lagoons analyzed have been completely lost as they have already been invaded by terrestrial vegetation, including some with a large influx of birds in the past, such as Charco del Toro, Zahíllo or Brezo.

Only 10% remains in good condition.

The three lagoons that were permanent "have ceased to be so", with the best known being that of Santa Olalla, which marked a milestone last August after drying up completely, a situation that only occurred in 1983 and 1995.

Since the record of 3,000 temporary gaps recorded in 2004, the trend has always been downward.

"The observed changes are significantly related to the temperature and precipitation of each year, as well as to the extension of cultivated areas, the constructed surface in Matalascañas, the distance to the pumping stations of the urbanization and the operation of the golf course" .

"The negative impact is widespread," the experts conclude.

Meeting of the Doñana Participation Council, this Monday. JUNTA DE ANDALUCÍA (JUNTA DE ANDALUCÍA)

This disappearance of the wetlands has caused the death of amphibians, reduced from 4.3 species per square kilometer, to only 2.5 species in 2021. The two species of turtles native to the Iberian Peninsula, both included in European red lists, have suffered a reduction to 33% of the space they occupied in the 1990s. In parallel, the loss of aquatic habitats has diminished dragonflies and damselflies, which had 43 species in 1959 and in 2022 only 12 species were observed, 28% of the total.

and

have also vanished

due to the deterioration of wetlands.

In addition to temporary lagoons, other priority habitats such as humid intra-dune depressions or black forest are in decline.

The most striking consequence is the defoliation and death of numerous trees, many of them centenary cork oaks, which is a "good indicator of the current exceptional situation", warns science.

In a recent survey of 121 cork oaks, 8% have died and 10% are in very poor condition.

The experts deny relevant statements contained in the bill, refuted by scientific evidence.

If the text says “the aquifer is not touched”, the scientists remember that “the current exploitation of the aquifer is not sustainable because more resources are extracted than are regenerated through the recharge due to variable and decreasing precipitation”.

When the right affirms that "irrigated crops are an example of sustainable development", the Biological Station recalls "the uncontrolled proliferation of crops without the corresponding authorizations that shows the unsustainability caused by a clear failure in governance by the Administrations" .

And finally, PP and Vox assure that "Doñana is more protected than ever",

when the data shows that “the highest level of protection at the state and European level is not serving to protect the threatened habitats and species of Doñana”.

“After a year as difficult as 2022 or 2023 itself, which will not be better, the situation will only worsen rapidly”, the scientists advance on the optimism breathed by the parliamentary text.

Greenpeace activists, with a banner against the PP and Vox bill on irrigation in Doñana, three weeks ago. GREENPEACE (GREENPEACE)

In the Participation Council, three positions have been evidenced: one completely in favor of the proposal, from the Junta and some mayors of the Huelva region, another intermediate that has demanded information from the Andalusian Government such as the Business Confederation (CEA), the Huelva Provincial Council and mayors, and a third against the law with scientists, environmentalists and the Ministry for Ecological Transition, according to sources present at the meeting.

The spokesman for the Board and Minister for the Environment, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, considers that "hoaxes and lies" are spread about Doñana: "We cannot tolerate this continuous coming and going of hoaxes and lies with the sole intention of continuing to upset the environment and continue projecting an image that is not true at all.

Doñana is non-negotiable”.

The counselor has censured the Ministry for "refusing to sit up to two times in a technical bilateral commission."

The response of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, has been to find a "consensus": "If we are not capable of enabling a large space for consensus, we will probably be placing Doñana in an irreversible situation, which the institutions warn us through. international level, the European Commission, Unesco, the Court of Justice of the EU, the Government and it is what all the citizens of our country expect”.

From the environmental organization WWF, its person in charge of Doñana, Juan José Carmona, has warned of the consequences of the severe opinion of the scientists against the law: "With that report from the Biological Station, we ended up again in the Court of Justice of the EU, which already condemned Spain in 2020”.

“The real objective is to create a figure of farmers waiting for water, who will have irrigated crops without water.

The Board wants to get rid of the obligation to act against them ”, he added.

Revilla's intervention has directly appealed to the conscience of the political leaders and the hypothetical disappearance of the reserve due to the sharp decline in its biodiversity: “We have a legal, moral and social obligation to solve this problem.

The future of Doñana and its region depends on our decisions, which is not only a local or regional value, but is also a universal heritage of all humanity.

You have to choose how you want to go down in history”.

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