News & comment – December 2023

Key Do

сana vote halted

In October, Andalucia’s regional president, Juan Manuel Moreno, announced that a planned vote to increase the amount of permitted irrigable land around Doсana National Park would be temporarily suspended, and that the proposal could be taken off the table completely (www.birdlife.org/news/2023/10/06/donana-national-park-is-safe-for-now). The final decision depends on whether a Ђ350m investment in economic and social development in the area is approved.

This decision to halt the vote comes after a report issued earlier in the year by Spain’s National Research Council highlighted that 59% of Doсana’s large lakes had not reached full capacity since at least 2013. The report described the region as being in a ‘critical state’. If the vote over irrigable land went ahead and had been passed, around 800 ha of land around Doсana would have been lost to agriculture, and over 1,000 illegally dug wells would have become legal.