The Andalusian right moves the same card to Doñana a year later, although PP and Vox assure that it is a different suit. This Thursday, the same day that the President of the Board of Directors, Juan Manuel Moreno, attended the release of a female Iberian lynx in Doñana, his party announced that tomorrow at Vox in the Andalusian Parliament it will table another bill to “improve “ will submit to the Management of Agricultural Lands of the County of Huelva”.
In other words, the right – now without Ciudadanos – is reactivating its proposal to legalize more than 1,500 hectares of illegal strawberry cultivation that is currently depleting the reserve’s aquifer and resulted in its aquifer being declared “overexploited” two years ago and a half. The ongoing drought has caused the park’s biodiversity to continue to decline, although December’s rains took a breather. It hardly rained in January and February.
Neither the PP nor Vox wanted to clarify the text of the initiative this Thursday, but already in early 2022 they defended and approved a similar proposal to expand between 1,460 and 1,903 hectares of irrigated land next to this biosphere reserve. The proposal collapsed as regional elections approached, but it provoked a harsh warning from the European Commission that it would fine Spain again if Doñana dried up due to increased irrigation.
The President of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno (in green jacket), this Thursday at the release of a lynx in Doñana. Julio Munoz (EFE)
The popular parties – with an absolute majority in the autonomous parliament – assure that this bill will not exhaust the aquifer because it is about promising water to farmers, but always superficially. After the registration 14 months ago, the cascade of criticism continued: the government warned before the constitutional court, Brussels threatened a fine, UNESCO opposed it and more than a thousand scientists signed a manifesto to oppose the idea of the parliamentary groups.
The proposal for PP and Vox To comes less than 100 days before local elections. Both parties are fighting for votes in the five Condado-area cities, where the Socialists rule with an absolute majority in three of them. The PSOE, which abstained from voting on the legislative proposal during the last legislature, will not attract attention again. This position provoked a sharp rebuke to the Andalusian socialists by Vice-President and Minister for Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera. Regional PSOE secretary-general Juan Espadas is making it clear that this time he will not support a proposal which he believes will trigger the same alarm in Brussels.
Information is the first tool against climate change. Subscribe to her.
subscribe to
The Andalusian government stopped registering the initiative last week. A phone call from the Minister of the Presidency, Antonio Sanz, to his political group delayed the initiative to allow time for negotiations with those responsible for the ecological transition. Andalusian Environment Minister Ramón Fernández Pacheco met with Environment Secretary Hugo Morán on Monday, to whom he presented the proposal. The central government will never talk about expanding irrigation in a very sensitive area suffering from a water shortage that is fully affecting the Doñana National Park and the aquifer that feeds it.
The Vice President and Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, when announcing her plan for Doñana in Almonte, Huelva, last November. PACO BRIDGES
The Environment Ministry ensures that the aquifer overexploited by water theft will “never” be the solution for red fruit growers. They rely on surface water, but these are also said to carry water to the huge underground well. According to the board, there are talks with the European institutions and the central government to reach an agreement, but the PSOE is not so optimistic about this dialogue.
The parliamentary spokesman of the Andalusian PP, Toni Martín, assures that the draft law will incorporate the changes that the PSOE had registered in the previous legislature, which had opted to include all the organizations concerned, such as the Doñana Participation Council, which involves all actors are to include. including the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation.
The Socialists believe that the organization of irrigation in the Doñana area should be led by the Andalusian government, which they are urging to present a bill and not to hide behind factions. When this is the case, the executive has to collect a series of mandatory reports, while scrutiny is more lax if it leaves the new regulations in the hands of the groups.
Aside from opposition in Madrid, Brussels and Paris, the right-wing proposal a year ago split farmers in the park’s adjacent area between legal (with irrigation rights) and illegal ones, in addition to mobilizing major food traders who warned the Andalusian government that their measure the worst advertising for the Doñana brand. It remains to be seen what the impact of this second measure will be and whether environmentalists will oppose it outright as they did a year ago.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits