Huelva, (EFE).- The environmental organization WWF fears that Doñana could leave the ‘green list’ of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) after the report issued by 10 experts from this organization after two years of evaluation, something for which conservationists hold the Junta de Andalucía responsible.
In statements to EFE, the coordinator of the WWF Doñana Office, Juanjo Carmona, has indicated that the IUCN has studied 50 indicators. And the result reveals “the progressive deterioration of Doñana”. A reality that “with almost total probability” will mean “the expulsion of Doñana from its green list due to the decline in biodiversity. And the problems that the natural space has, more important no longer in Huelva or Andalusia, but probably in Europe”.
In the evaluation of the natural space, it has only approved 17 of those 50 indicators, according to what the newspaper El País has advanced this Friday. Of the four blocks that compose it: good governance, design and planning of the park. Effective administration and successful conservation, Doñana only approves the second and with only a 5.
WWF surveillance in Doñana
The current situation of the park, in Carmona’s opinion, cannot be attributed “exclusively” to the drought. Rather, it is due to “a progressive deterioration” that is based on the “inaction” of the Junta de Andalucía in recent years. And that contrasts with the initiatives that, in recent times, the Government of Spain has launched, through the Ministry for Ecological Transition (MITECO), which has at least announced a framework plan with measures. Which are already starting to run.
Some measures that “are not the only ones” that Doñana needs. But that within the powers of the State they consider that it is “a minimum of action to start trying to reverse the situation,” according to WWF.
Faced with this, the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, and his Minister for the Environment, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, “can be remembered for being the ones who brought Doñana out of international recognition for the first time in its history.” Something that “did not even happen during the Aznalcollar catastrophe”.
“And they could be because of your inaction.” Something that “we have been denouncing for years and that the IUCN itself has also been able to verify”, she underlined.
“Anti-Doña” Law
In his opinion, “the only initiative” they have launched has been “amnestiing illegal irrigators, those who are stealing water from the aquifer and are creating a very serious problem for Doñana and the legal irrigators in the area.” Through the proposed law for the improvement of irrigation in the North Crown.
As a consequence of this initiative, “Doñana’s image at an international level begins to break. But the problem is not that it breaks, but rather that it occurs due to this progressive deterioration. Because when a rigorous study is done from the scientific point of view, Doñana falls. Its biodiversity is in decline and its problems are coming to light.”
And in light of this, “the Andalusian government wastes more time trying to justify the unjustifiable than implementing what many of its technicians in the national park have demanded.” And this “because they are exclusively engrossed in trying to approve the Anti-Doña law.”
He has stressed that “the main problem that Doñana has is not only the drought, it is a decline due to the inaction and lack of action of the Andalusian government for Doñana.” EFE