The Government agrees to distribute 70 million to the municipalities of Doñana as compensation for reducing strawberry cultivation

The first contact between the Ministry of Ecological Transition (Miteco) and the different agents involved in the 350 million euro plan signed between the Government and the Government of Andalusia for the recovery of the natural enclave of Doñana has resulted in the agreement with the 14 Town Councils in the area of ​​influence of the Natural Park for the distribution of 70 million in aid.

These are funds that will be used to promote the economic diversification necessary to adapt to a new reality in which strawberries and red fruits will cease to be their main source of income and employment once the reconversion process that it foresees is undertaken. the framework of actions approved in November 2023.

“The purpose of these funds is to facilitate the diversification of economic activity in the territories, what is known as just transition processes where there is a very pronounced dependence on a specific economic sector,” said the Secretary of State for the Environment. , Hugo Morán, after his meeting with the 14 mayors of municipalities around Doñana distributed among the provinces of Huelva, Seville and Cádiz.

“What we are fundamentally trying to do is generate support to activate lines of economic development and employment generation that open the range of capacity to use resources in those territories,” he explained.

The meeting with the councilors was the first meeting that Morán held in Seville on Tuesday morning and from which it was expected to come out with a concrete solution.

In the rest of the planned ones, with farmers and irrigators and with environmental and social groups, respectively, Miteco intends to listen to their proposals to finalize the design of the annual aid based on the change in crop that must be included in the orders that will regulate the rest of subsidies provided for in the plan.

This aid is what contributed

de facto

to resolving the conflict initiated by the Andalusian Government, which endorsed the law promoted by PP and Vox that expanded irrigation in the natural environment, favoring farmers who had depleted their aquifers illegally, and who This new agreement managed to knock down.

“Our proposals are those included in the Doñana intervention framework, and there are even initial quantifications of budget availability for each of the lines, but there may be variations and transfers of financing from one to another depending on the result of what we hear,” said Morán.

The representatives of the farmers, irrigators and environmental groups consulted, however, have attended the meeting convinced that it was going to be Miteco who was going to convey their proposals to them.

“We are going to listen in principle because we have no proposals to comment on,” Juanjo Carmona, WWF spokesperson, acknowledged a day before the meeting, a comment that representatives of agricultural organizations shared before entering their meeting.

Controversy over distribution criteria

Unlike these subsidy orders, which are competitive, aid to City Councils is distributed based on an application of resources that is distributed with the same parameters for all municipalities.

The Government decided that the 14 town councils involved - Almonte, Aznalcázar, Bollullos Par del Condado, Bonares, Hinojos, Isla Mayor, Lucena del Puerto, Moguer, Palos de la Frontera, Pilas, La Puebla del Río, Rociana, Sanlúcar de Barrameda and Villamanrique de la Condesa― who agreed on the criteria for this distribution, but the agreement has only been possible between 12 of those municipalities.

Almonte and Hinojos, those that occupy the largest surface area of ​​Doñana's natural environment (65%), distanced themselves from their majority proposal, which, however, was the one that the ministry finally opted for, which, as Morán has said , shares the distribution criteria.

“There are 14 municipalities, all of them on equal terms,” said the Secretary of State.

The criteria for the distribution of the 70 million have been established by making compatible parameters such as surface area, number of inhabitants, GDP and the socioeconomic situation of each of them.

In addition, a maximum of eight million has been stipulated, which Almonte would receive (the most), Aznalcázar, Hinojos, La Puebla del Río and Sanlúcar de Barrameda 5.9;

5.6 million Moguer and 4.1 Bollullos, Bonares, Isla Mayor, Lucena del Puerto, Palos, Pilas, Rociana and Villamanrique.

These items must be allocated to five lines of intervention: water cycle, energy efficiency, sustainable mobility, renaturalization of cities and projects linked to the sustainability of the territory.

The next steps to follow have also been finalized so that the advance of 50% of these funds occurs this year and the other half in 2025, always working with the total execution horizon of 2027. The first procedure will be to finalize the agreement. public consultation, then a protocol will be signed between the 14 City Councils and the ministry, then the royal decree will be approved and finally the individualized agreement will be signed with each council in which the projects that each of them will execute will be specified.

In order for the advance to be fulfilled, these agreements should be signed throughout 2024.

“This mechanism is the one that is applied to the territories where just transition funds are allocated so that, under equal conditions and on the same parameters for all municipalities, the protocol is distributed,” the Secretary of State indicated regarding the criterion of approved distribution.

Morán has thus tried to appease the spirits of the mayors of Almonte and Hinojos (Huelva), who have left the meeting visibly upset by the criteria adopted.

“We have had no choice but to accept, but we are not complacent with the agreement,” Paco Bella, the councilor of Almonte, told this newspaper.

“I am surprised that the ministry talks about increasing sustainability and biodiversity and in the distribution, those of us who allocate more population and resources to the conservation of the Park are not taken into account as much.

“They have turned against the population that supports Doñana,” he added.

They had proposed up to three alternative options in which their presence in the natural enclave is considered and that, in the best of cases, left Almonte with 20 million and Hinojos with nine.

“There are municipalities that are going to receive four and do not have a square meter in Doñana,” insists Bella.

Morán recalled that there are already other aids for belonging to the National Park or its perimeter from which these municipalities benefit.

“The neighbors who live off strawberries are nervous and worried about the application of the agreement,” Juan Antonio García, mayor of Bonares (Huelva) and one of the main defenders of the criterion for distributing the 70 million approved by the Miteco.

His municipality is one of those that form part of the Northern Crown of Doñana and was at the epicenter of the controversy during the processing of the irrigation regularization law that has been abandoned.

Now it is preparing for a future in which berries will not have as much influence on the economy.

“The services sector is also going to suffer, but we have to adapt,” he says.

He believes that in two years the effects of the latest plan to save Doñana will begin to be seen.

step on the accelerator

Miteco wants to accelerate the process to be able to convene aid orders for farmers and other social, institutional and economic agents as soon as possible, especially after this first meeting had been delayed more than a week due to the Government's inclusion of the Andalusian Government of some clauses relating to the rights to use forest land in a macro decree of administrative simplification that could alter the bases of the Doñana pact.

Minister Ribera ordered to suspend the start of that meeting until the Executive of Juan Manuel Moreno did not eliminate that wording of the text, which granted amnesty to farmers who had grown red fruits on forest land next to the ecological reserve, and the new version was published in the BOJA.

What is already beginning to be executed or is in the bidding process are all the works and works related to the first intervention framework, endowed with 356 million, specifically aimed at environmental actions, especially the water cycle.

In this sense, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, has confirmed that this Monday the environmental evaluation of the Matalascañas WWTP was approved.

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