Andalusia’s wetland haven for rare birds and wildlife is still being hit by local farmers in their quest to provide early season strawberries to northern Europe.
The nearby strawberry farms are fed by boreholes, many illegal, which have lowered Doñana’s water table. Silt washed from nearby farms is also choking the channels that crisscross the park.
In addition, plans have been outlined to build an oil pipeline through Doñana, while other developers seek to expand some of the resorts in the area. Water demand for new hotels and golf courses would further erode the local table.
But the greatest fear for many is the Andalusian government’s proposal to reopen the Frailes mine.
The existing 200,000 hectares of salt marsh is critically important to the birdlife of western Europe. Migratory birds, including house martins, swallows, cuckoos and warblers, rest here on their annual migrations from Africa.
The World Heritage Site is home to some rare birds, such as the Spanish imperial eagle, as well as cattle egrets, night herons, purple herons, flamingos and spoonbills.
The desperately endangered Iberian lynx also has found a home in the park.
But 16 years ago, the wetlands and its wildlife were nearly wiped out when nearly two billion gallons of highly acidic water, mixed with arsenic, cadmium and other waste metals, burst out of Los Frailes mine 45 km north. The liquid spread down to the Guadiana river.
More than 25,000 kilos of dead fish were collected in the aftermath and nearly 2,000 adult birds, chicks, eggs and nests destroyed. The contamination persisted for some years with many birds giving birth to deformed or dead chicks.
It was Spain's worst environmental disaster and the clean-up cost €90m. Spain went on to spend a further €360m, some of it EU funds, on restoring the landscape which, in the 1950s and 60s, had been drained in places to create rice and cotton fields. Some of this farmland is now being turned back into wetland.
Now economics are forcing the reopening of the mine as 1,000 jobs could be created in an area with 30% unemployment.
The proposal has divided much of the population. The workers' union UGT supports the mine's reopening. Others fear that real investment in eco-tourism which has been made in Doñana could be lost.
