The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Morenoand the vice president and minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, they sign this monday the definitive peace in it Doñana national park. An agreement that buries the proposed irrigation law with which PP and Vox intended expand the hectares of intensive cultivation in the northern crown of the Park and thus address decades of demands from a group of farmers in the area.
“Stop making this absurd war more fat.” The peace will be signed under the gaze of the president of the Doñana Participation Council, Miguel Delibes, who called for “the greatest social, institutional and political crisis” to be stopped” around the natural space for many years and called to bury the war. The Government of the nation, which was going to take the norm to the Constitutional Court, the European Commission, the scientific community, UNESCO, the political opposition and environmentalists formed a common front against Andalusian law. PP and Vox, together with the lobby of farmers in the area, proposed expanding the irrigated land at a critical time in Doñana due to the drought and lack of water.
Peace in defense of the Park means a parenthesis in the middle of a period of harsh confrontation between the Government and the Junta, at a time when Moreno is willing to turn Andalusia into a spearhead against Pedro Sánchez’s agreements with the Catalan and Basque independentists. Despite the enormous political noise, both Executives have fought so that the Doñana negotiations would be safe from the political confrontation of PP and PSOE in Spain.
It was on October 3 when Moreno and Ribera met in San Telmo, headquarters of the Andalusian Government, to explore an agreement that would put an end to more than 21 months of political confrontation around Doñana. PP and Vox registered the irrigation law proposal for the first time in the Autonomous Chamber in January 2022. It declined with the call for Andalusian elections and was presented again in March 2023. The law proposed legalize more irrigated hectares, about 750in the northern crown of Doñana, about 30 kilometers from the Park, in the municipalities of Almonte, Bonares, Lucena del Puerto, Moguer and Rociana del Condado, all from Huelva County. They are municipalities that were affected by the 2014 strawberry reorganization plan, which eliminated 1,653 hectares under plastic at the foot of the Park after years of uncontrolled and uncontrolled growth of the cultivation of red fruits and after a serious warning from the European Union.
A ruling by the European Court in June 2021 condemned Spain for not preserving the Park and warned of automatic economic sanctions if the proposed measures to protect Doñana and its aquifer were not met. The European Commission has recalled that it may increase these fines during the open conflict with the irrigation law. Vice President Ribera was the one who picked up the phone last September, already in discount time for the Andalusian law to be approved, proposing a landing strip to Moreno. The Andalusian president has defended in first person a very conflictive norm that has eroded its center profile, its commitment to “a green revolution” in Andalusia and its promise to fight climate change. In exchange, the PP reaped some historical results in Huelva In the last municipal elections in May and for the first time in history they govern the Huelva Provincial Council.
700 million investment
The agreement has been possible after the Ministry promised to double the investment dedicated to the Doñana Park and the towns that coexist with the nature reserve. As this newspaper advanced, the economic compensations will reach 700 million euros, with 350 million euros more, which doubles the initial commitment of the Doñana Plan, of 356 million euros, presented in November 2022 for the restoration of the Park. This money will be used, according to the different work folders opened in the negotiations, to promote agribusiness around the ‘berries’ in Huelva, promote alternative crops that need less water, such as vines, and to encourage other industries that provide work to the area beyond intensive agriculture.
On the table there is an ambitious project for Huelva to lead the European production of green hydrogen with solid investments already underway with Iberdrola or Cepsa. Public-private collaboration could be increased to boost the production of fashionable energy.
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There will also be a relevant item for the construction of accommodation for seasonal workers, which will put an end to the problem of shanties in the area, which has already caused another file in the EU, and which businessmen and town councils are incapable of successfully eradicating. In addition, promotional activities and investments will be multiplied to protect the brand of red fruits from Huelva on the shelves of the main European supermarket chains, with customers who are aware and concerned about the protection of the Doñana Park, who demand guarantees of sustainability and respect for the environment. A brand damaged by periodic boycott campaigns where the interests of other European producers intermingle.
Farmers have pressed until the last minute to receive compensation for the land that were left out of the strawberry plan. The intention of the Platform in Defense of Irrigation of the County has asked until the end that their soils be declared irrigated even if they were later expropriated by the Government. This would significantly increase the compensation for that land, which would be worth up to ten times more if it can be dedicated to intensive cultivation than if it is rainfed or forested. The Ministry has always rejected that route. Moreno publicly committed to the farmers to make any agreement subject to the approval of those affected in the area.