Aerial view of a watershed and two ponds between greenhouses in Lucena del Puerto, Huelva. One of the most controversial areas and one that contributes to the deterioration of the Doñana aquifer: Paco Puentes
I am writing these lines to vent as a citizen stunned by the reality that befalls us every day. He could do it in a more technical way, as head of the Doñana Biological Station, the CSIC research center that, along with other actors, managed to protect Doñana in the middle of the last century. However, I will confine myself to my sensations and feelings.
The doñana of today is very different from that of the early 20th century. After decades of intense efforts to dry and cultivate it, we now have only a third of what it was. Today, the pressure exerted by our activities outside the protected area is so strong that we are rapidly losing emblematic habitats such as lagoons, which numbered in the thousands, to waterfowl that flocked in the hundreds of thousands to spend the day, to winter or to reproduce over the winter, or such valuable natural monuments as hundred-year-old cork oaks, dozens of which fall victim to the lack of water. Doñana is passing a point of no return, which means that the Doñana of the future will no longer be what we were trying to preserve in its day. Sadness.
Like any normal citizen, I learn from the press that another bill in the Andalusian Parliament proposes to increase the legalized irrigated areas by amending the special plan for the management of the irrigated areas north of the forest canopy of Doñana, popularly known as the Plan de la Fresa, and the Forestry Law of Andalusia. It still amazes me that these things happen.
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The Strawberry Plan, approved in 2014 after seven years of painstaking work, sought to bring order to two decades of disorderly expansion of intensive crops under plastic that have farmed thousands of acres, many without the necessary permits, occupying forest land and, in many cases, will stolen a scarce public good like water for private use. The plan identified the farmed lands that could be legalized because they were within regulations that needed surface water supply to close their wells, and marked the areas that could not be legalized and should be restored to their former state .
We are in 2023 and this plan, which would eliminate most of the water use from the aquifer, has not yet been implemented. Now they are trying to change the rules so that virtually all companies that have previously operated illegally can continue to do so. That means burying the previous work and starting anew the entire administrative process. It is obvious that if this happens, in 20 years we will continue as we are now, halfway but having lost part of what is left of the old Doñana today. The political philosophy of seeing only briefly that in four years everyone will be bald fills me with despair.
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When it comes to water, the prospects are not rosy, there is increasing demand and less water available. This summer will be great, not only in Doñana. We are already in meteorological spring and at the moment the forecasts are not warning us of an imminent deluge, which is what we need. If April doesn’t remedy the situation, we are in for a disastrous summer for agriculture and consumption restrictions in many locations. This overexploits the aquifers on which the supply from streams and springs depends. Fear.
In recent decades we have lost the traditional sustainable agriculture where olive groves were dry, cultivated between the trees and where cattle grazed at the end of summer. Today we have industrial olive groves without biodiversity that have ruined the traditional ones by increasing production and competing with lower prices. Farmers are now going into debt and working harder to try to earn the same as before. Industrial agriculture relies on dwindling surface water due to climate change, on groundwater that we are running out, on oil in the form of diesel and gas in the form of fertilizers that will sooner or later run out. distress.
Restrictions on water consumption
The urgency to initiate a shift in water demand for agriculture, industry and urban consumption is evident, including the tens of millions of tourists who come to Spain and also demand water. Consumption restrictions should start now so that the blow isn’t so hard and to adapt to what’s coming. This year, many farmers in the Guadalquivir basin will go bankrupt. grief.
Meanwhile, in Doñana, the region is deceived with false promises that are not kept for two reasons: it is not legally possible and, above all, there is not enough water. The consequence is that everything stays the same, we produce strawberries until the water runs out or nobody wants Spanish strawberries anymore, with the consequences that this will have for agriculture in the region. In the meantime, we will have lost Doñana’s heart and soul. On a path of accelerated destruction, everything will stay the same. Injustice.
I have no doubt that everyone wants to protect Doñana. The question is which doñana do we want to keep and here, given the events, there are obviously different opinions. On the one hand, there are those who want to keep Doñana only as a marketing medium capable of attracting tourists and giving international prestige to a region and its products and services. On the other hand, there are those who believe that this should be a consequence of the intrinsic environmental values that have historically shaped it. Whatever we do, Doñana will continue to be there, if only perhaps as an impoverished and simplified place, a reminder of what it was. It depends on us.
Most people think of nature as weak, a helpless victim for people who are invincible. Let’s face it, nature is much stronger than us. Doñana is nothing more than the canary in the mine, warning us of what is to come. Sooner or later we will have to change the way we use nature to adapt to the conditions it imposes on us. There is no other way, we are completely dependent on it.
Eloy Revilla He is a CSIC Research Professor and Director of the Doñana-CSIC Biological Station.
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