The director of the biological station of Doñana-CSIC, Eloy Revilla, has pointed out that the national park of Doñana is in a “critical state” and that “more than half of the gaps that were there have disappeared”. He indicated this in his intervention at the extraordinary plenary session of the Doñana participation council held in Almonte (Huelva) to analyze the bill presented by the PP and Vox to the Andalusian Parliament in order to regularize illegal irrigation in the around Doñana.
Revilla provided “bleak results” and spoke of “a generalized deterioration” of this space, both in terms of the state of the lagoons and the habitats and biodiversity. 59% of the largest lagoons in Doñana have not flooded since at least 2013. These changes are related to the temperature and precipitation of each year, but they have also been influenced by the extension of cultivated areas, the built-up area in the urbanization of Matalascañas and the operation of the golf course, according to the CSIC. For example, irrigated areas in the forest canopy of Doñana went from 2,162 hectares in 2004 to 3,543 in 2014, an increase of more than 30% in just ten years.
In Mediterranean systems, droughts are frequent, but if there are consecutive years without flooding of the lagoons, their vegetation disappears, as it is colonized by terrestrial vegetation, which leads to the complete disappearance of the wetland and the loss of habitats .
Santa Olalla Lagoon, Doñana’s largest permanent lagoon, dried up completely in 2022, and the 2021-2022 wintering of waterfowl was the worst in 40 years (only 87,488 counted against 470,000 the previous year ). WWF points to the overexploitation of the aquifer and its 1,000 illegal wells as the main culprit.
The PP and Vox proposal could regularize around 1,500 hectares of illegal irrigation (mainly strawberries) around Doñana, according to some sources, although the PP talks about 750 hectares and 650 farms. The initiative is put to a vote on Wednesday in the Andalusian Parliament. The claim is to preserve “the interests of tens of thousands of people in the province of Huelva, small farmers” who were left out of the Special Plan for the Forest Crown of Doñana. This plan was drawn up at the time with the aim of regularizing illegal irrigation, but has been in place since 2004.
The PP insists that this initiative does not affect Doñana or its aquifer, but that the water would come from the planned transfer from the hydrographic demarcation of the Tinto, Odiel and Piedras rivers to the Guadalquivir demarcation.
WWF claims that this transfer must be used to relieve the aquifer, not to legitimize illegal irrigation. This organization has denounced that the proposal “is motivated solely by electoral interests in the county of Huelva and that it is built on false premises, such as supposed non-existent historical rights of farmers”.
The Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, said that the proposed law is unconstitutional and invades the powers of the State. In addition, the intended use of the transfer water is not included in the Guadalquivir hydrological plan, he recalled.
