The Doñana Irrigation Law continues to go through phases and is now facing the final stretch of the procedures necessary for its final approval after this Tuesday the Commission for Development, Territorial Articulation and Housing of Parliament has given its approval to the opinion by which The irrigated areas of five municipalities in the Northern Crown are regulated.
Twelve votes were in favor (PP-A and Vox) and seven were registered against, when the parliamentary left bench (PSOE-A, for Andalusia and the Mixed Group-Adelante Andalucía) has insisted on the ‘no’ to this standard.
It will be, predictably, in the last plenary session of Parliament of the month (September 27 and 28) when the text becomes a reality, a commitment that the President of the Andalusian Executive, Juanma Moreno, acquired during his previous period of Government and that he has put on the table after the regional elections of 19-J.
Farmers from five Huelva municipalities in the Northern Crown of Doñana (Almonte, Bonares, Lucena del Puerto, Moguer and Rociana del Condado) will benefit from this law of reorganization of the territory that regularizes 700 hectares, so that they will be able to access irrigation water as long as, as the Minister of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy and spokesman for the regional Executive, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, has pointed out on different occasions, it is available.
The Board argues that obtaining water rights for this land is subject to the availability of resources and the hydraulic works that are pending execution and that are the responsibility of the central government.
Currently, Doñana is in a complicated situation with an overexploited aquifer mainly due to water extraction for cultivation, both by those professionals who work with legal concessions as well as by those individuals who irrigate their fields illegally through wells. Added to this are the years of extreme drought that the region has been suffering and that is generating real problems in the agricultural world.
It is the environmentalists who first raised their voice against this ‘amnesty’ for irregular areas, warning of the danger that this would entail for Doñana, just as they have repeatedly pointed out the calls for attention from the European Union (with threats of economic sanctions). if this green lung is not taken care of.
However, and despite the social and political movement that has been generated around the law, the Government has continued with it, including a “technical” amendment from the Popular Group and rejecting eight others formulated by the Ecologistas en Acción Andalucía federation that had were assumed by the groups Por Andalucía and the Grupo Mixto-Adelante, and from which the representatives of the PSOE-A have abstained.
For its part, the PP-A has insisted that “no farmer is going to be amnestied, we have said it loud and clear,” according to popular deputy Manuel Andrés González, who has accused the socialists of “lying.” by saying that “the PP has promised water to farmers” and has “deceived” them with this initiative. The PP-A has “reached out to all political groups” to discuss this initiative, but “they have refused to sit down” with them. ,
For his part, Vox deputy Rafael Segovia has stated that the commitment to the environment is not “exclusive to the left”, and has defended that his party’s position is totally compatible with the conservation of the park. He wanted to make it clear that this bill “does not touch water and is an act of justice.”
On the contrary, the PSOE deputy Mario Jiménez has urged the right to “withdraw the bill”, because “there is no other way” than that and “setting the table for dialogue”, just as he has lamented the risk that “the international credibility of Andalusia in environmental matters, the brand image of our agricultural production” will run, and the potential of Huelva and its surroundings as a “tourist destination.”
Inmaculada Nieto, spokesperson for the group Por Andalucía, followed this line, calling for the withdrawal of the law. “The status of legal” is given to soils where until now production has been “illegal”, in addition to giving “a certificate of nature to farmers who have not done things well,” she expressed.
Finally, the president of the Mixed Group-Adelante Andalucía, Maribel Mora, has declared that with this approval the only thing left to do is “put the headstone” on the “grave” of the natural park, and has made reference to the “large fines” that will arrive when the law comes into force.
