Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Posted by : John Ross on Jun 02, 2008 - 09:51 AM environment

The Tablas de Daimiel in the province of Ciudad Real have been dry for over three years and are expected to be removed from the UNESCO list of biosphere reserves next month. This would be the first time that UNESCO withdrew biosphere reserve status from a site, though national authorities have in the past removed places from the list on their own account when ecological value of a site has been reduced. Once Spain's largest wetlands, and among its most ecologically valuable, the Tablas de Daimiel have been drained by tens of thousands of legal and illegal wells sunk over decades to obtain water for irrigation, and its underground aquifer can now only supply it with water when this is pumped up. The Tablas de Daimiel will continue to be one of Spain's 14 national parks and, if plans to cure their environmental health work, they may be restored to biosphere reserve status in 2015.

The Tablas de Daimiel lie in the middle of the vast, dry plains of La Mancha, which makes them all the more remarkable and all the more valuable. The nature reserve covers nearly 20 square kilometres, and when it is at its wettest, in the spring, the marshes should extend to around 1,000 hectares (the scale on the park's website goes up to 1,600 hectares). Instead, El País reports that only 18 hectares are under water and quotes the park director, Carlos Ruiz, as saying that that is "only because we are pumping underground water up."

Paradoxically, the Tablas de Daimiel are one of the areas in Spain with longest history of official protection - Philip II ordered that "se guardase muy bien" (special care be taken of them) in 1575. And they were highly valued for the richness of their fauna - birdlife in particular, and especially birds for hunting - more than two centuries before that. This wealth of fauna was stimulated by the fact that the waters filling the aquifer come from two sources, the fresh-water River Guadiana and the more saline River Cigüela. The result is - or was - a great variety of flora and fauna.

But in the fifties, Franco ordered marshland to be drained and wells to be sunk, and the national park was already deteriorating when it was declared such, in 1973. And there has been a nearly complete lack of control of well-sinking since then.

Last year, Spain's main ecological organizations - Ecologistas en Acción, WWF-Adena, SEO-Birdlife and Greenpeace - jointly presented a petition to UNESCO to have the park's biosphere reserve status removed. The logic is two-fold: first, that it makes no sense for the site to be protected in this way when it does not have the ecological value it should, and secondly to serve as a sharp rap on the knuckles to the Spanish authorities to spur them into action.

The authorities in question are less than delighted with the prospect. El País quotes the Environment Councillor for the Castile-La Mancha region as protesting "It would be unfair of the UNESCO to be insensitive just when there is a plan in place to restore the aquifer and make its exploitation sustainable." This plan is intended to reduce the area of irrigated land by about 50,000 hectares as well as for the farms involved to receive less water. Something like 3,000 million euros will be spent on land purchase, reforestation, and water meters. But the results are not expected to be seen before 2018.

Biosphere reserves are one of UNESCO's strategies to combat biodiversity loss, and there are nearly 500 sites in over 100 countries. The philosophy behind them includes their use by Man, so that they are intended to:
* Reduce biodiversity loss
* Improve livelihoods
* Enhance social, economic and cultural conditions for environmental sustainability
* Thus contributing to the pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals, in particular MDG 7 on environmental sustainability.

Reserves are reviewed every ten years, in a process which begins with an assessment by national scientific committees and ends with UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Council approving renewal, or not. Spain's CSIC, National Research Council, will recommend that either biosphere reserve status should be suspended until 2015 (the more probable decision) or Spain should be given an ultimatum to complete recovery by the same year, which is not considered feasible.

I don't want this to discourage visitors, by the way. You won't find the same wealth of birdlife and other wildlife as you would have twenty years ago, but it is still a highly enjoyable experience.