The Doñana crisis worsens a little more. The bill that the PP and Vox have promoted in the Andalusian Parliament to legalize illegal irrigation in their surroundings is causing unprecedented tension and political division and dimming hopes of reissuing (at least in the short term) an agreement between the institutions , a necessary requirement to preserve this natural enclave and overcome the continuous degradation tests. The PP and Vox initiative is a false step that could further deteriorate the state of conservation of this extremely valuable place, according to scientists, ecologists and other experts. The PP and Vox bill in Andalusia is a "flagrant violation" of the 2021 EU Court ruling that forces Spain to end the over-extraction of water, warns the European Commission
These are the keys to the debate.
The Andalusian Parliament approved on Thursday to process the bill of PP and Vox on the regulation of irrigated areas of five municipalities located north of the Doñana Forest Crown, members of the so-called Huelva County (Almonte, Bonares, Lucena del Puerto , Moguer and Rociana). The claim announced by PP and Vox is to "order" the situation of some 800 hectares and 650 farms that were left out of the Special Plan for the Doñana Forest Crown. This is an agreement reached in 2014 between the administrations to legalize only irrigation prior to the year 2004. A similar initiative, undertaken last year with PP and C's, attempted to regularize some 1,500 hectares.
WWF estimates that about 1,000 illegal wells gravitate over the Doñana aquifer, responsible for the overexploitation of these water reserves. These wells capture the water, which is stored in rafts and used to irrigate red fruits, strawberries and strawberries. The Guadalquivir Confederation opens files but has shown itself incapable of stopping this bleeding. Sanctions arrive late through the courts and it is worth paying fines to offenders.
Scientists have been warning that the national park is in "critical condition" and that "more than half of its lagoons have disappeared." This degradation is attributed to factors such as annual rainfall variability and climate change, but also to the increase in cultivated areas, the growth of tourist activity (Matalascañas urbanization) or the operation of the golf course, all of which place great pressure on Doñana, a space that is boxed in between all these fences.
Irrigation in the forest crown went from 2,162 hectares in 2004 to 3,543 ha in 2014, which represents an increase of more than 30% in just ten years. Today the area occupied today is even greater.
The PP and Vox present the law as a territorial arrangement and point out that its purpose is to preserve "the interests of tens of thousands of people in the province of Huelva, small farmers who, for decades, have earned their family's livelihood with these exploitations", for which they speak of "historical rights"
“A land use plan cannot be put into operation without it having been submitted to the procedure before the mandatory report, in this case from the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation. Competences that belong to another Administration are being ignored,” Hugo Morán, Secretary of State for the Environment, told La Vanguardia. He maintains that the bill is "an aberration", since "this proposal adds greater pressure to the natural space of Doñana" and, furthermore, it lacks the "technical and scientific information" on the availability of water to be supported.
The PP insist that their initiative does not affect Doñana or its aquifer (it is a different proposal from the one raised last year with C's and Vox), since the water would come from the planned water transfer from the Tinto river basin, Odiel and Piedras even to the demarcation of the Guadalquivir, which is a state work. The Andalusian president, Juanma Moreno, has defended this solution and has demanded that the Sánchez government "fulfill" its commitments and carry out the works for the transfer of the Tinto-Odiel-Piedras. However, the president of the Guadalquivir Confederation, Joaquín Páez, declared on Monday at the Doñana participation council that the transfer is not suitable for new irrigation.
The transfer planned by the Guadalquivir Confederation from the Tinto-Odiel-Piedras to Doñana would consist of a transfer of 5 hm3 for supply and 15 hm3 for irrigation, but there is no date for completion. In addition, this water, as planned, should serve to provide flows to farms that already have legal groundwater concessions, since what is involved is that these contributed flows replace the resources that are now legally extracted from the subsoil, so that the pressure on Doñana is relieved.
The central Administration highlights that the Junta de Andalucía "has never proposed or suggested, either actively or passively, a modification of the Guadalquivir hydrological plan in order to incorporate a larger irrigated area" and that hydrological planning (recently approved after a long participatory process) establishes that it cannot enable even one more square meter of irrigable land.
The parliamentary initiative of PP and Vox has been described as confusing. WWF complains that the actual number of hectares that would be legalized has not been reported. For his part, Mayor Moguer, among others, have complained that the Board has not communicated to the municipalities the land and the people who would be affected by the application of the law, so they are unaware of what this proposal was retranslated into. in concrete terms.
The Government and environmental organizations maintain that in order to comply with the ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU (which condemned Spain for mismanaging water and its impact on the natural ecosystems of Doñana), it is necessary to assume the commitments of the Plan of the Forest Crown.
The approval of the aforementioned Plan was the result of years of work between all the affected sectors and administrations and achieved the consensus and approval of the Doñana Participation Council, which is in charge of monitoring compliance with the Plan approved in 2014. The pact It was signed while Susana Díaz was in the Andalusian presidency and Mariano Rajoy in the Spanish government. "Instead, now it is intended to impose a plan unilaterally by the Board," they say.
Faced with the large volume of illegal irrigation and the socio-political problem generated, Hugo Morán maintains that the pragmatic solution is not to assume fait accompli, but for the various administrations to collaborate and provide solutions with their respective powers, given that Doñana has seen its " load capacity” and that a response with concrete measures and solutions must be given to the European Commission.
The Ministry for the Ecological Transition promotes an investment estimated at 350 million euros in water: 150 million in surface water supplies that replace groundwater or improve urban supply systems, and another 150 million for sanitation and purification, and improves the conditions of the water that feeds Doñana, among other items
Moran invites the Board to exercise its powers in matters of agriculture and industry, with this suggestion: "Why do you have to dump all the activity on the farm and the primary sector, when this has already exceeded the carrying capacity, if it is Can an industrial transformation activity take place perfectly in the very environment of that territory, to generate employment?
The director of the Doñana-CSIC Biological Station, Eloy Revilla, has indicated -in relation to the bill presented in Parliament- that "the current exploitation of the aquifer is not sustainable", since "more resources are being extracted from the which is regenerated annually through recharge by precipitation, which is variable and decreasing, which is why this natural resource is being depleted".
In addition, he has stated that the "uncontrolled" proliferation of irrigated crops "without the corresponding authorizations" has been "caused by a clear governance failure on the part of the competent administrations."
At this point, he believes that there is a "clear lack of political will" when it comes to solving the problem. "This executive inaction is what has led us to the unsustainable critical point in which Doñana finds itself," he assured.
According to the director of the Doñana Biological Station, the need to provide water to the farms that appear in the proposed law "makes the urgent solution of the problem even more difficult."
Spain was condemned by the Court of Justice of the European Union for breaching its obligations derived from the Water Framework Directive and the Habitat Directive. Specifically, the ruling (June 2021) condemned it for the illegal extraction of water for crops and for "not having foreseen any measure to avoid the alteration caused" by these extractions on priority habitats.
The European Commission has sent a letter to Spain in which it states that "if the processing of this proposal succeeds in the terms that have been announced, it would be producing a flagrant violation of the provisions of the judgment of the Court of Justice" of Luxembourg.
If it does not remedy, the European Commission threatens to launch another procedure that could culminate in a fine for Spain.
In addition, Unesco has warned the Junta de Andalucía of the serious consequences of ignoring all these requirements.
