Juan Carlos del Olmo, general secretary of WWF, asks the PP to “definitely” withdraw the bill processed in the Andalusian Parliament to “regulate” illegal irrigation in the area of ​​Doñana.
WWF, owner of 3,200 ha in the national park, denounced the massive theft of water in the park’s surroundings 10 years ago as one of the main causes of the drying up of its lagoons in this natural enclave, today in a critical situation.
His complaint condemned Spain in the Court of Justice of the EU for failing to comply with the Water and Habitats directives, for which the administrations are obliged to protect the place under threat of a fine.
What do you think of the proposed law of the PP and Vox in Andalusia?
The legalization of these 1,900 hectares of illegal irrigation, as they claim, is a real outrage. We have spent years fighting against the expansion of berry and greenhouse agriculture. It is a bill that has neither head nor tail considering the impact it will have on farmers and on an ecological level.
Because?
Because the PP and the Junta de AndalucÃa have broken all the rules. I have never seen such a big frontal rejection: from the scientific community, the European Commission, the Ministry, the Guadalquivir Confederation. There is not a single voice in favor of the proposal other than the interested parties themselves and the PP and Vox.
Juanma Moreno Bonilla says that he freezes the processing of the law during the electoral stage.
It is an electoral maneuver. Doñana, a world heritage site, cannot be at the expense of the partisan interests of the PP in Huelva. The only reasonable thing is a definitive withdrawal of the proposal, as requested by the European Commission and science.
What have you learned in this long lawsuit to defend Doñana?
We have always come across administrations that claim to love and defend Doñana while attacking it with absolutely incomprehensible projects, such as housing estates, oil pipelines, highways and above all with the expansion of agriculture.
Still going?
Yes, because the president of the Junta says that Doñana is a jewel, but he promotes a plan that could be catastrophic for the natural space. We do not evolve; The lack of knowledge about the ecology of Doñana shown by politicians is surprising.
It has always been like this?
There are politicians who think that Doñana is preserved with administrative limits in the park without understanding that what happens around it, such as relatively remote irrigation, affects it. There is a Doñana on the surface, which surrounds the national park, with pine forests and dunes; and another, underground, the 277 aquifer, which connects everything. Nobody sees that Doñana.
And what does it mean?
For this reason, when politicians, like Moreno Bonilla, say that their plan does not affect Doñana, they are committing a falsehood. Of course it affects you!; The conservation of the national park and its surroundings depends on the existence of streams, corridors, crops and dryland olive groves, and that not everything is a continuous greenhouse.
What will happen if the bill continues after 28 M?
It would make the agreements reached after many years fall apart, and which were reflected in the Corona Forestal Plan, where we promised to advance in the regulation of 9,000 hectares and leave out 1,900 hectares that were agreed to be eliminated. Huge damage will be done to the national park.
Is there something behind?
The trick of the PP is to recognize some water rights and satisfy irrigation expectations while continuing to irrigate with illegal wells. With this, the aquifer would continue to be damaged. At the same time, it hurts legal farmers, who are waiting for a transfer (from Tinto-Odiel). The PP has sold farmers the idea that they will be able to receive water from this transfer. But the law (2018) provides for water transport only for legal ones and for supply.
What is the PP looking for?
There has been an electoral strategy. Behind this law there is no noble intention to compensate some poor farmers treated unfairly; there is no right to compensation. No court has recognized those rights. They have sought to win several municipalities in the area of ​​Doñana where these illegals are mainly based. And the second, even more serious, is pure deliberate speculation; The aim is to achieve capital gains thanks to irrigation expectations that will make the value of the land multiply.
What must be done in Doñana to comply with the sentence?
Obey the law. In many cases it is a lawless territory. And that means eliminating the illegal wells and, above all, eliminating these 1,900 hectares of illegal irrigation. We are asking the Board to cautiously close farms; the Guadalquivir Confederation is closing many wells but the Junta has not yet closed a single illegal hectare. They say they have opened files, but they last for years and years and expire. Therefore, compliance with the law is needed; here there is nothing to negotiate with the illegals, here the illegals have to be eliminated and those farms have to be restored.
Who should close the wells, the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation or the Junta de AndalucÃa?
the two administrations. The Board has powers to close the farms and the Confederation to close the wells. We ask that the Board provisionally close those farms; the Confederation is closing many wells but the Junta has not closed a single illegal hectare.
What else is needed to serve the sentence?
In the 9,000 hectares of regularizable surface, efforts must be made towards greater efficiency in the use of water, with good water governance, I D, control and so on. Water will always be extracted from the aquifer, but a balance must be found, a balance between the surface water that one day will come with the transfer and the groundwater, so that the aquifer can recover.
Are strawberry crops sustainable?
That they are legal does not mean that they are sustainable; you have to go a long way. In the end, given the scenario of climate change and the lack of water, perhaps there is not enough water for 9,000 ha and an agricultural reconversion in the area must be carried out and this number reduced. A serious study is needed. Those that remain must be truly sustainable crops in the use of pesticides or nitrates so that they have the least possible impact.
What more needs to be done to comply with the CJEU ruling?
In Matalascañas, the wells next to the dune area must be removed. The only solution there is to bring the water from Mazagón. We have to massively restore the ecosystems and make Doñana a more resilient place to climate change. If we know that it will rain less and we take away its rivers, its streams and we drink all the water, how are we going to preserve Doñana? In short, it is necessary to eliminate illegal water harvesting, make existing agriculture more sustainable and invest massively in restoring natural cycles with nature-based solutions,
Do you appreciate any real will to withdraw the PP proposal? The central government says that without this prior withdrawal, there will be no dialogue. Should we let this electoral phase pass?
The Junta de AndalucÃa has realized that it has gotten into a real hornet’s nest for wanting to win in the Diputación de Huelva. The dimension of Doñana has surprised and surpassed them, despite our warning. They have forgotten its international dimension. They cannot make unilateral decisions about something that is the heritage of humanity.
The letter sent by the Commission is an amendment to all of the Board’s plans. Will the PP withdraw its proposal definitively?
Now a short-term vision is imposed. In the short term I don’t think they are going to withdraw the proposal, but I want to think that in the medium or long term they are going to have to rethink it. There have been statements highlighting that “this is nuanced.” But the substance of the question is not nuanced. The bottom line is that they want to legalize 1,900 irrigated hectares.
Is there a risk that the parliamentary process will continue and a fine will be imposed on Spain?
My impression is that the visit of members of the Board to Brussels to meet with the European Commission was a reality check. I don’t know if the Junta AndalucÃa thought that the European Commission is a fair booth where you can go to negotiate. The European Commission is a very well-oiled machine and we have a lot of experience because we have made many complaints to the European Commission. When this machine starts up, and even more so when the Court of Justice has already judged the file, you cannot go and convince them of anything because it is an incompetent, unfeasible and unsustainable project. It has been a mistake; it is revealed that the king is naked and that there is no one to support that plan. And that in the medium term should make them reflect.
Does the PP want to lower the tension?
Well, it seeks to reduce media attention; but when the proposal begins to be processed again in the Andalusian Parliament, it will once again be relevant. Doñana evidently appears, disappears and reappears. But if they decide to pass the law as it is, I think it will forcefully return to the political debate.
And this is good?
I think it is good that Doñana is in the political debate. What we regret is that it has been used in such a spurious way to try to get some votes, turning our backs on everyone, science and everyone; but I believe that talking about the future of Doñana should be a political priority for politicians in our country.
Do you believe it?
It should really be something that was on the agenda because Doñana sums up a lot of things. It is a laboratory where all the contradictions and all the options of development models come together.
Moreno Bonilla has reiterated that his proposal has not been understood, that it did not affect the aquifer since it refers to a transfer of surface water… And there are illegal farmers who wield historical rights.
Of course we have perfectly understood what Moreno Bonilla and his government are proposing; we, the scientists and the European Commission have understood it. What he is doing is deliberately breaking the rules. If he really thinks that there are some farmers unfairly treated and that their rights should be reviewed, I remind him that the Crown Forestry plan itself, which was approved at the time by the Junta de AndalucÃa and the Government, contemplates mechanisms to review those hectares or people or companies were left out at the time. Changing a management plan requires reports to its own ministries, impact reports, reports from the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation and it knows that they will be negative. At this time there is no report that says how many hectares are affected or how many affected.
What would you say to these farmers who have told you that they have historical rights and feel aggrieved?
There are no historical rights torts. These farmers have deliberately transformed their lands that used to be mountains and pine forests, knowing that they were breaking the laws of land use planning. And many of these farmers are not “poor farmers”, but have hectares in the legal part and have some rectarara in the illegal part. We have nothing to discuss with the illegals,
