The battle to preserve Doñana continues for environmental NGOs, which this Wednesday will hand over 260,000 signatures to the European Union Commissioner for the Environment, Virginijus Sinkevicius, against the bill being processed in the Andalusian Parliament that “threatens Doñana”. , by proposing a regularization of illegal irrigation in crops around the National Park.
Specifically, Ecologistas en Acción, Salvemos Doñana, SEO/BirdLife, WeMove Europe and WWF will meet with the European representative to convey to him the need for the EU to continue “pressure the Spanish and Andalusian governments” to prevent “this ecological attack” from putting One of the most important refuges for biodiversity and wetlands in Europe is in danger.
Also this Wednesday the inauguration of the ‘Climate Action Sevilla Summit’ forum is being held, a space to talk about sustainability and climate change that is held in the Seville capital on July 5 and 6. There, the Vice President of the Government and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, referred to the Andalusian President, Juanma Moreno, as the “quintessence of cynicism” as far as Doñana is concerned, since “he deceived me last year, obviously he can’t fool me anymore,” he says.
While authorities such as the former Prime Minister José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero or Minister Ribera speak about the environment, environmental organizations are in Brussels to remember something that Europe already knows and has already shown on many occasions: that Doñana is the wetland The most important in Europe and is the habitat of hundreds of thousands of birds, many of them from countries in the north of the continent, which depend on its marshes to breed, spend the winter or rest during their migration to Africa. For this reason, it is important that the EU continue to pressure the Spanish authorities and remind them, as many times as necessary, of their obligation to protect the Natural Park.
For this reason, the NGOs stress that Spain and the Junta de Andalucía have an enormous international responsibility while “Doñana is dying of thirst due to climate change”, due to intensive agriculture and greenhouses for the production of strawberries and other red fruits that have ” uncontrollably occupied thousands of hectares, isolated its biodiversity, dried up its streams and polluted and overexploited its aquifers”.
In this sense, they assure that there are more than 1,000 wells and hundreds of hectares of crops that keep the National Park and its immediate surroundings “under siege” despite the CJEU ruling and UNESCO recommendations.
“It would be one of the largest ecological attacks perpetrated by an administration in the history of Doñana and a mockery of all of society and of the international organizations with which the Spanish State has committed itself,” they warn.
The Vice President of the Government and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, has referred to the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, as the “quintessence of cynicism” in relation to the proposed Law of the PP and Vox , with an absolute majority in the Andalusian Parliament, which intends to regularize irrigated areas at the gates of Doñana.
This was expressed by the minister in statements to the media before speaking at the opening ceremony of the Climate Action Sevilla Summit forum, at the Palacio de Congresos in the Andalusian capital. “He deceived me last year, obviously he can’t deceive me anymore because he lied to me the previous year.”
“I think this has generated enormous tension, putting the viability of a very important sector in the province of Huelva at risk, losing credibility before the European institutions, and I would say that before the world, it can no longer be hidden, not even before NASA, that shows the serious threats that Doñana has”, added the Minister of Ecological Transition.
The also vice president of the Government has insisted on the idea that “to guarantee the viability” of Doñana “we have to reduce the pressures” on the natural space. Likewise, “to guarantee the economic viability of the people who live on red fruits, we have to generate alternatives, as we are generating from the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation (CHG).” In this sense, she has highlighted the Transfer Law of 2018, “which cost us so much and which was one of our first priorities.”
“It is normal that there are so many Spaniards, and not Spaniards, who are concerned about what I believe deserves the qualification of one of the environmental cathedrals of Europe,” added Ribera. Therefore, “instead of generating risks, threats and uncertainties, what corresponds is not to deplete the park but to concentrate to reduce the pressures on Doñana and create alternatives for people who, logically, aspire to live in the area where they have always done and also to have living conditions that allow them to bring a salary home”.
