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Europe’s largest wetland reserve, the Donana National Park in southwest
Spain, is in danger of drying up unless steps are taken to replenish its
aquifers. Meanwhile, a Spanish hydrogeologist asked by the European Commission
to assess the threat to Donana says he is being refused vital information
by both the officials who commissioned him, and his own government.

‘I don’t know whether this is a bureaucratic cockup or a deliberate
attempt to gag me,’ says Ramon Llamas, head of hydrogeology at Madrid’s
Complutense University. ‘But I am beginning to believe that pressure is
being put on the Commission to prevent my report being published.’

Donana, in Huelva province, is home to several endangered species, including
the Iberian lynx and the Spanish imperial eagle. Hundreds of thousands of
migratory birds from Africa and northern Europe spend part of the year feeding
in its canals, marshes and bogs.

The Commission asked Llamas last August to analyse a report by the
Spanish government on the state of the aquifers in the park, after environmental
groups and other organisations filed more than 100 complaints arguing that
the waters of Donana were being siphoned off for industry and agriculture.
However, neither the Commission nor the Spanish government has made the
document available to him. ‘Numerous requests for the report have just drawn
a blank,’ he says.

He suspects that the government does not want his report published at
a time when it is desperately trying to convince its European neighbours
that it is taking steps to protect the environment. ‘I have seen leaked
versions of the document and they do not reflect the true situation in Donana,
nor the dimension of the disastrous consequences of the desiccation of the
·É±ð³Ù±ô²¹²Ô»å.’

Llamas decided to speak out after a colleague from Barcelona’s Polytechnic
University released an independent report in November which supports the
fears of environmentalists. It was those fears that prompted the Commission
to hire Llamas.

The report paints a disastrous picture of Donana. According to Francisco
Javier Samper, who coordinated work on the report, some 50 litres of rain
per square metre a year are reaching the main aquifers in the park. This
is not enough to sustain the ecosystem, says Samper. The authorities dispute
this figure. Their estimates are three times as high.

According to Samper, the water table has fallen so much that saltwater
is seeping in from the coast.

Samper’s findings are supported by several earlier studies, including
one by the Institute for Geology and Mining, which in 1986 reported a drop
in the water table of 20 metres in places.

Local and central administrations have tried a number of schemes to
correct the damage to Donana but their efforts have been hampered by lack
of money, red tape and stiff opposition from local farmers and developers.
A plan to reroute water to Donana through a system of canals and pumping
stations, approved in 1985, has still not been completed.

Enviromentalists blame the drying out on mismanagement by the Patronato
de Donana, an organisation set up to safeguard the park’s ecosystems. Purificacion
Gonzalez de la Blanca, an enviromentalist and a former member of the organisation,
says: ‘Twenty years ago, Donana boasted 200 000 hectares of wetlands. Today
27 000 hectares remain.’ Little has been done to try to reverse this trend,
she says. ‘Around this time of year the noise of the migrating bird is deafening.
Now there is only silence. The park is empty. This is a catastrophe.’