As you might be aware, we are witnessing a serious and imminent threat to the Doñana National Park, one of the most iconic protected areas in Europe. This threat not only affects the conservation of key habitats in Spain, but also poses additional pressure on the survival of hundreds of thousands of birds that use this wetland area to breed, winter and rest on their migratory path to and from Africa.
Since the beginning of 2022, the People’s Party with the support of Vox and Ciudadanos in the Andalusian Parliament in Spain have been promoting a legislative proposal, presented as a solution to several issues concerning access to water by local farmers.
Far from being the solution, this law proposal intends to repeal the main measures of the current management plan. If approved, an area of 1,460 ha of illegal crops (mainly strawberries in greenhouses), which are currently exploiting the aquifer in the buffer zone around the Doñana National Park, will be legalised. This will mean the amnesty of 85% of the current illegal crop area in that part of the basin.
The CSOs coalition, Living Rivers Europe, will send a letter to the ENVI Committee of the European Parliament, to invite its members to make use of its powers and publicly denounce the severe attack on this wetland and the threats it poses to the implementation of key EU environmental laws and policies. We believe that this attack should be exposed as much as possible. Therefore, we kindly call for your support and engagement with this letter and initiative.
We planned to send the letter to the European Parliament on the 8th of April, thus, we kindly ask you to sign the letter with your logo as soon as possible! (You may have to request access for this, but please do.)
Here is the link to add your organisation name as supporter.
