Madrid (EFE).- The restoration of rivers and the promotion of green axes and urban forests are some of the measures deployed by cities to recover the flora and fauna of traditionally natural spaces, conquered by the typical concrete of an urbanism of decades previous unsustainable
Throughout the second half of the 20th century, sections of the river that passed through the cities began to be closed, some were piped, others were boxed in… The objective was none other than to avoid hindering rapid urban growth, Santiago Martín explained to Efe Barajas, responsible for Water at Ecologistas en Acción.
This urban trend of pure and hard concrete to isolate the rivers began to be reversed at the end of the eighties, with the aim of regenerating river spaces and reintegrating them into urban life, due to their immense ecological and social value. with the example of Germany, a pioneer in this type of project, which curiously tends to come more to the fore during electoral periods.
Renaturation improves the quality of life of residents
“When you restore an urban section of a river, you help to improve the environment but also the quality of life of the people who walk and move around its surroundings on a daily basis,” explained the head of Ecologistas en Acción, an organization that is driving in the renaturation of urban rivers in the country with the elaboration of a multitude of proposals.
In Madrid, the Manzanares has gone from being a smelly river to an ecological corridor with a large park in its vicinity, home to dozens of species of fish, trees and birds, explained Martín Barajas.
His organization’s proposals also include the Oro river in Melilla, already under construction, and the Francolí (Tarragona), whose renaturation project has already been approved, and also the Piles river, in Gijón (Asturias), which will receive 2.8 million euros of European funds, among others, to alleviate the problems of contamination of its waters.
Also, projects have been presented for the Guadalmedina (Málaga); the Tamarguillo (Seville); the Genil (Granada); Vinalopó, in Elche (Alicante); the lower section of the Manzanares in Getafe (Madrid); the Isuela in Huesca or the Zapardiel in Medina de Campo (Valladolid).
The National Green Infrastructure Strategy
The Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for Ecological Transition (Miteco) has received, in the 2022 call, more than fifty aid proposals from municipalities pending resolution, with a total amount of 62 million euros, for this type of project .
In 2021, the Government approved the National Strategy for Green Infrastructure and Ecological Connectivity and Restoration, to identify and recover damaged ecosystems and connect them with each other.
At the European level, the biodiversity strategy for 2030 for the reintegration of nature into daily life, urges cities with at least 20,000 inhabitants to develop greening plans (urban forests, accessible gardens rich in biodiversity, urban farms, tree-lined streets , etc).
The European nature restoration law, a pioneer in explicitly establishing ecosystem restoration objectives, includes ambitious goals to repair the lost natural heritage.
Madrid and Barcelona, in the lead
By territory, in addition to Manzanares in Madrid, another major action is the “Madrid, Isla de Color” Strategy, in which context the “Metropolitan Forest” projects are framed, creating a 75 km green ring around the city of Madrid, and “Barrios Productores”.
In Barcelona, in 2020, a Climate Emergency Declaration was approved, with a battery of actions to increase green hectares, deploy superblocks (superillas) and green axes and commit to sustainable mobility and the energy transition.
The Besòs river, after leaving behind its stage as a “sewer” in Barcelona, has become a reference river park, and its waters, once so polluted, now help to alleviate the serious drought through a water treatment plant that the Generalitat has expanded.
In the Basque Country, the recovery of the Bilbao estuary, the most ambitious renaturation project, is nearing completion and the collectors and treatment plants of the Alto Nervión, in Llodio and Amurrio (Álava) are expected to come into operation in 2024; The Galindo (Sestao) treatment plant treats 90% of the water that is discharged into the Bilbao estuary and it is now possible to fish for sea bass and sea bream.
A new green corridor is planned in Valencia, the most ambitious initiative in this field for more than forty years, when the Turia Garden was recovered. The proposal includes a diversity of landscapes that reproduce forest masses, agricultural spaces, green areas linked to water and express roads that will connect, in fifteen minutes, pedestrians or with sustainable mobility, neighborhoods and towns in the southern zone with the future central station.
In the Murcia region, the plans focus on the rural environment except for some interventions in urban sections of rivers; The renaturation of boulevards around the Mar Menor and in areas of La Manga (such as Caleta del Estacio) stand out.
In the region of Pamplona, the Arga River Park has been recovered, with more than 35 kilometers along its banks, and Navarra leads the LIFE Kantauribai project for the conservation of species and habitats linked to the ecosystem of rivers and tributaries that flow into the Gulf from Biscay.
On the other hand, the Government of Cantabria will restore with European funds the old quarry of Cuchía (Miengo), to regenerate the native wild flora and fauna; In Escalante or around the Cerrias beach (Piélagos) there are houses with a court order to demolish them before renaturalizing the area, as happened in Alto del Cuco (Piélagos).