Emergency wells save Las Tablas de Daimiel from combusting

In December, the peat – carbon formed from plant residues – in the subsoil of Las Tablas de Daimiel was on the verge of combusting due to lack of water, as happened in 2009. The alarm bell that the process could be in The Molemocho mill, an old hydraulic infrastructure based on peat, started when its structure began to crack, something that had never happened before, explain sources from the national park board. It was then that it was decided to launch emergency surveys and pump water from the aquifer, which has been declared overexploited since 1994 due mainly to agricultural activity in the area.

In this way, 200 hectares have been flooded, in addition to preventing the peat from catching fire. The park plan indicates that at the end of winter the water should cover 1,400 hectares of the total 1,750 hectares of the wetland. When these plant remains dry, they contract like a sponge, fissures occur through which oxygen enters, causing the organic matter to oxidize and an increase in temperature that triggers the first spark. This year it has been avoided, but the central planks (flood areas) are heading towards the sixth spring without water. A scenario they have never faced before.

The behavior of the battered Daimiel Tablas confirms that wetlands have the capacity to recover if given a chance. This sheet created with water artificially extracted from the aquifer has attracted in about four weeks 7,450 cranes, 818 red ducks (an emblematic species of the park), 690 greylag geese, 835 mallards or 30 brown pochards and nine gray teals. These last two species are in critical danger of extinction. Despite the resurgence of life, the number of birds that have arrived is estimated to be 11% lower than in a full flood year.

What has not managed to survive the persistent drought is the masiega, a plant species considered a habitat of priority interest in Europe and the most characteristic landscape of the La Mancha wetland. The national park has declared it extinct. It has not been possible to comply with the governing plan of the protected space, which states that in 2027 the masiega should extend by 50 hectares.

In this scenario and in the commemoration of World Wetlands Day, the president of the Government of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, has announced that they are in negotiations with the central Government to reach “a historic agreement” that involves the ecological restoration and conservation of the national park, without giving any further clues. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition has also not offered more information about the actions that would be carried out when asked by EL PAÍS. Sources from the Ministry of Sustainable Development of Castilla-La Mancha have responded that the members of the commission have already been decided by the autonomous community and the Government – all politicians – where those priority measures that are still unknown will be decided. In addition, technical meetings are taking place.

In December of last year, the Minister of Sustainable Development of Castilla-La Mancha, Mercedes Gómez, reported that the creation of a working group would be promoted in which a draft of the plan to be deployed in the area would be prepared. The objective would be to guarantee the water volume to the wetland, which includes the reduction of groundwater withdrawals with a special protection zone, reinforcing ecosystem surveillance and the acquisition of land adjacent to the national park. In addition to improving water quality and habitat conservation.

Alberto Fernández, from WWF, patron of the Las Tablas de Daimiel national park for 15 years, indicates that they do not have information, only what was said in the last meeting in December, in which some lines were offered “very, very general”, but without details. Remember that there was already a special plan for Alto Guadiana when José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero governed, in which 66 million euros were used to purchase paper rights (farmers' rights to irrigate, but from farms that were not being cultivated and which, therefore, did not use them).

“It was a failure because they did not stop extracting water from the aquifer and 15 cubic hectometers that were illegal for vineyard crops were legalized,” he explains. It was also planned to launch reforestation plans, alternative development plans, or monitoring illegal irrigators. “But nothing was done,” he recalls. On this occasion he has more confidence because there are two antecedents, that of the Mar Menor and Doñana, “in which consultations, tables have been held… there is a logic, a coherence.”

Fernández indicates that they advocate in the short term to maintain the emergency wells for times of drought and to expand the park. In the medium term, a reconversion of the sectors should be considered with the total abandonment of large-scale irrigated crops and vineyards. “It must be converted to dry land, but with a fair transition,” he warns.

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