The Andalusian Council’s decision to postpone its proposed law to legitimize illegal irrigation in the Doñana area has a very substantial economic counterpart. The Central Government has committed to invest 350 million euros in a plan named with an enlightening name: Framework of actions for sustainable territorial development in the area of ??influence of the Doñana National Park.
The resignation (“temporary”) of the Andalusian president, Juanma Moreno Bonilla, in his controversial parliamentary initiative opens the door to a normalization of relations with the central administration. And this is a first step on the way to an unprecedented potential pact aimed at recovering this enclave of great ecological value, now in a critical situation due to the overexploitation of underground water and the drought resulting from climate change.
The unexpected political thaw between the Board of Andalusia and the Ministry for the Ecological Transition has as a key factor the promise of the Spanish Government to allocate these 350 million euros. “This amount will go to the promotion of territorial and economic development activities that are compatible with the preservation of Doñana, to new initiatives or to modernize or adapt existing ones”, Hugo Morán, Secretary of State for the Environment, explains to this newspaper .
The new plan is added to the framework of actions that the central administration is already carrying out in Doñana (also with a budget of 350 million) to defend its water resources. These are investments that were launched to solve the degradation of this site (recovery of watercourses, the replacement of underground flows with surface water, elimination of underground exploitations or closure of illegal wells) and are the response to the infringement procedure opened by the EU and to the conviction of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, among other international pressures.
The lines of action have yet to be identified, but the initiatives may include areas such as agriculture, livestock or even tourism or education, since the plan is conceived as “an endowment of the whole of the Government” and not just the ministry, explains Morán. This 350 million is an “investment ceiling”, although everything may end up depending on the territory’s capacity to generate investment projects.
The dialogue initiated foresees that for a month representatives of the two administrations will hold regular meetings to give final shape to the content of the plan, so that then they would begin to think about organizing the financing lines for these projects. The Andalusian president, Juanma Moreno Bonilla, justified his decision with invocations of dialogue. “We have started a dialogue that I hope and wish will be fruitful, honest, sincere and sensible”, he said.
The administrations, for the first time, seem fully convinced that recovering Doñana requires a shared effort and that it is not possible to advance in a confrontational scenario.
For all this, we want to convey to the various social actors a proposal that “is exciting” and prevent the territory from falling into monoculture projects exclusively dependent on dwindling water resources. “We cannot continue in a scenario that goes further in the depletion (of the aquifer) that Doñana is already suffering as a result of the pressures caused by human activities, aggravated by climate change. Resources are diminishing and there can be no increasing pressure. Activity and employment must be created without being subject to the dynamics of climate change”, says the Secretary of State.
The Board’s decision to “postpone” the proposed law, aimed at legitimizing illegal irrigation in the Doñana area, removes a first obstacle to the agreement.
The PP-A and Vox law proposal could lead to the regularization of around 1,900 hectares (after granting irrigable agricultural land titles to land that had been left out of the so-called Strawberry Pact of 2004, today classified as land rainfed or forested), according to WWF.
The decision taken by the Board could have been influenced by multiple factors, but especially the growing pressure from the European Commission, which has warned of the risk that the decision of the European Court of Justice may turn into a million dollar fine against Spain for non-compliance the European directives that oblige him to protect Doñana.
The Board must not be alien, moreover, to the international appeals of Unesco, which at the last meeting has once again threatened to stop cataloging this place as a world heritage enclave. “Let’s not forget that this whole situation can also harm the strawberry sector, at a time when marketing contracts are being negotiated”, points out Juanjo Carmona, spokesman for WWF, which has started these complaints campaigns in Europe about the unsustainable use of water at risk in Huelva. “No one can be immune to these warnings”, says the Central Administration.
Doñana’s “sustainable development” plan will logically respect the legitimate rights of farmers with allocated water resources, but it wants to make it clear that in Doñana “we have reached the limit of irrigation growth capacity”, which is why we need to explore other ways”. says Morán. Minister Teresa Ribera has reiterated that “the data are stubborn: there cannot be even one more hectare of irrigation”.
The Doñana National Park is now subject to a kind of “assisted breathing” regime, as it receives external water resources, from other basins (Tinto-Odiel-Piedras), which is atypical for a natural space that must prestige for the natural values ??it treasures. “We want to comply with the ruling of the European Court of Justice and give stability to the brand of Doñana products, a case that worries farmers at a time when the sustainability of their production method is being questioned,” concludes the Secretary of State.
The Councilor for Sustainability and spokesman for the Board, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, said that there is no “agreement”, but “a start of negotiations”. “We are looking forward to this change of attitude of the Spanish Government. They always demanded that the dialogue had to be conditional on the withdrawal of the proposed law. The bill has not been withdrawn, but we have found this space for dialogue that we have always asked for”, he says.
