Two weeks ago, the Doñana national park was the first ecological reserve expelled from the green list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the largest environmental organization in the world. The departure from the protected space of this prestigious green seal is due to the mismanagement of the Junta de Andalucía (PP), responsible for implementing measures to reverse the deterioration of its biodiversity, in free fall due to intensive agriculture, tourism and the extreme drought. Until now, none of the 77 enclaves in 60 countries had abandoned this sustainability distinction.
Two weeks ago, the IUCN informed the Board by letter that Doñana was out of your green list after the analysis of 10 experts who for two years evaluated the governance and conservation of Doñana, given the progressive decline of its fauna and flora. The technicians' suspense was resounding. “According to the assessment carried out by the Expert Assessment Group for the Green List (EAGL), the site does not currently meet the IUCN Green List standard,” confirms James Hardcastle, director of protected and conserved areas for the organization based in Switzerland.
Despite the evidence, the Board denies the majority: “The Ministry has not received any official letter from IUCN indicating that Doñana has left the green list,” a spokeswoman said last Friday. The blow to the park and its loss of international prestige directly attacks Andalusian environmental policy and the efforts of its president, Juan Manuel Moreno, involved in a “green revolution” and who strenuously defended the law to increase irrigation in the Doñana area. , withdrawn three weeks ago after an agreement of 350 million with the Ministry for the Ecological Transition. In fact, the law was described as a negative “trigger” by experts, who stressed that more hectares of irrigated land harmed the precarious situation of the reserve.
“We do not see any errors in the expert evaluation process and it has been confirmed to them. They [la Junta] They have submitted the renewal and have not complied. Now they are back at square one and must understand that it is a path to improvement,” illustrates Carla Daneluti, IUCN regional coordinator for the Mediterranean.
The loss of the green seal has been a long process that began at the beginning of 2020. The international organization commissioned the group of 10 independent experts to study and judge the management work carried out by the management of the Andalusian park, and they delivered their report last January with a clear failure after two years of work. Then, in the spring, an external German verification team verified that there were no incompatibilities and that the experts followed the established procedure.
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But seeing the storm that was approaching and that was attacking the parliamentary processing of its law to increase irrigation, last June the Board reacted with a harsh letter of complaint addressed to the IUCN. The letter had its effect because throughout the summer the organization avoided confirming the departure from the green list, despite the approval of the study by its German verifier.
In the exam, Doñana had only approved 17 of the 50 indicators evaluated (34%) to assess the effort and achievements of the Board through four aspects: good governance, the design and planning of the park, effective administration and successful conservation. The reserve only passed the test in design and planning with a meager 54% and failed in the other three aspects, with a null result—zero out of five indicators—in successful conservation. Experts criticized the lack of “explicit actions” to manage threats to conserve characteristic species and ecosystems, as well as adequate action plans.
This newspaper has contacted the director of the park, Juan Pedro Castellano, but he has refused to answer. His superior, the Andalusian Minister of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, answered these questions at 1:45 p.m. on November 30, the same day that the IUCN notified the Board of its decision.
–Will Doñana soon leave the IUCN green list?
-I hope and pray that he does not abandon her, of course.
-You know that the criteria of the experts is different…
-I like to wait to see the official communications before talking about rumors.
-Rumorology? I suppose you have read the report of the 10 independent experts.
-Yes, and I have also read that the report is not final and the decision has not been made. We will evaluate the decision once it is issued.
-This group of experts suspended the governance of the park after two years of analysis. Will you dismiss the director of the reserve, Juan Pedro Castellano?
-Not right now. The director has the confidence of the Government of Andalusia.
Castellano has been in charge of the park for a decade—five years with the PSOE and another with the PP—and his replacement has been prolonged despite his dismal results, conditioned, of course, by political guidelines. Despite the counselor's denial about his replacement and the fact that his spokesperson denied last Friday that they were looking for a replacement, calling it “flatly false,” that trust does not exist. “They offered me to run the park two years ago, but it's too much media and too much pressure no matter what you do. “Too many eyes to be able to work calmly,” he reveals. Ana Warleta, coordinator of the General Directorate of Protected Natural Spaces of the Board. With the departure of the green list, created in 2012, a long process delayed by the IUCN ends, made up of more than 100 countries, including Spain and 1,200 NGOs, under the excuse of respecting the guarantee.
The Sierra Nevada National Park is also being evaluated by another group of technicians, but in this case everything indicates that it will pass the exam at the beginning of January. “In Doñana, the Board has stopped executing its powers in territorial planning, agricultural management and environmental conservation. It is an evident lack of decision-making seeing the obvious deterioration of the natural space,” sources in the case criticize.
UNESCO advisors and environmentalists have insisted that to turn Doñana around, the Board must execute the 2014 strawberry plan, which contains a clear battery of measures, most of which are pending a decade later. Despite the technical criteria, Fernández-Pacheco considers it a “bad plan” and says he wants to end it to reformulate it.
After the setback for the enclave, Hardcastle now leaves the door open for it to recover its reputation when the necessary measures that the Board has ignored for decades take effect: “Doñana continues to be a candidate site for a future inclusion on the green list. “We will support the park authorities to help improve management practices and achieve the desired conservation outcomes with the aim of the site rejoining the Green List in the near future.”
Of the 261,766 protected areas recognized by the IUCN, which cover more than 15% of the earth's surface and 7.4% of the world's oceans, only 77 are currently on the green list for their exceptional ecological value. The IUCN green list is the first international recognition to be suspended from the five main ones that Doñana has (Biosphere Reserve, World Heritage Site, Ramsar Wetland, Green List and Natura 2000 Network). But if the drought persists, others will probably fall with a foreseeable effect on tourism and the Doñana brand.
The gloomy ecological outlook, up for debate
The inaction for decades in Doñana de la Junta, responsible for the environmental management of the park, today has a cost that is reflected in the enormous decline in biodiversity. This gloomy panorama will star in the Participation Council of the protected area that is being held this Monday, with its president Miguel Delibes at the helm, but convened by the Board, which has avoided including the monitoring report on the strawberry plan on the agenda. as has been customary for a decade.
The ecological panorama is bleak: 59% of the largest lagoons have not flooded since 2013 and only 10% remain in good condition; and many species of animals and trees have died, including centuries-old cork oaks. Last year it only rained 343 liters per square meter, when the historical average is 523. The largest wetland, the Santa Olalla lagoon, only filled 10% of its surface in 2022.
289,696 wintering waterfowl of 97 species passed through the reserve, when 10 years ago there were almost 700,000, according to the official count of the Doñana Biological Station (EBD). The report presented this morning reveals that of the 22 species of birds analyzed, only three had an “acceptable” breeding, 10 had a “poor” breeding and nine of them did not even breed. The imperial eagle has gone from having 15 chicks that flew in 2016, to only three last year. 70% of breeding pairs of red kites did not lay or failed during incubation.
At the previous meeting last spring, the director of the EBD, Eloy Revilla, warned: “The future of Doñana and its region depends on our decisions, which, I remind you, is not only a local or regional value, but also It is a universal heritage of all humanity. “You have to choose how you want to go down in history.”
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