Archive for the ‘nature and landscape’ Category

Tablas de Damiel doomed?

Wednesday, November 26th, 2014

 

Tablas Daimiel - Coca Cola

Tablas Daimiel – Coca Cola

Well, it looks like the Tablas will be saved after all!, The mighty Coca Cola company are throwing their not inconsiderable weight behind the protection and future of these wetlands….

Do we think that Coca Cola can do a better job than 20 odd years of National Park status and hundreds of millions of funding already from EU, local and national levels?.. Time will tell but I find the whole idea really weird..

More from Coca Cola with the promo video in Spanish here.

UPDATE. It would seem a shadow of doubt has been cast on Coca Colas work at the Tablas de Daimiel…. Latest news on the forum from one of our members living and working there… It makes a good read that’s for sure.

Below is the news from 2009

The last chapter of the sad demise of the Tablas de Damiel, once one of Spain’s most important birding sites, makes depressing reading.  The underground fossil peat deposits had been on fire for several weeks. The lagoons have suffered over the years from the building of thousands of agricultural irrigation wells which have caused the water table to drop to the level of the peat, which was then  heated up over the summer and started to self-combust. El País

The Guardian  also reported on this story at the time.

Spanish wetlands shrouded in smoke as overfarming dries out peat. National park which was once a ‘paradise’ now on fire and churning out tonnes of CO2. They are meant to be Spain’s most important inland wetlands, but yesterday the lagoons at Las Tablas de Daimiel national park were not just dry, they were burning. Stilted walkways stood on baked earth and rowing boats lay stranded on the ground. Observation huts revealed no birds, just an endless stretch of reeds rooted in cracked mud.

And the iberianature forum is thundering. Here’s Clive on the topic “This will certainly be the first national park in Spain to be declassified due to a complete failure on the part of government, local authorities and local people…. And what next… Do we see Doñana go the same way in 10 years? What did they do with all the money…. The whole situation is a bad joke…. And what next? Once de classified it will be a fine place for a casino city maybe? Golf courses…. have to kick start the economy you know….”

See also: Environmental groups slate Las Tablas de Daimiel and Los Humedales de La Mancha

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Posted in Castilla_La Mancha, Conservation, Environment, Landscape, nature and landscape, news briefs |

Its Orchid Season!

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014

One of many of the amazing images by my good friend Sue Eatock. See her wildlife writing here.

Ophrys lutea

 

Posted in Flora, nature and landscape, Sierra de Grazalema |

The Rain in Grazalema

Sunday, March 9th, 2014

weather-set-1One of my favorite writers in Spain, Sue Eatock who lives in Grazalema – Andalucía, has been studying the wildlife in her area for more than 10 years now. In one of her latest articles she explains why Grazalema gets the highest rainfall in Spain.

“Grazalema has the highest rainfall records in Spain’. This is a phrase that is commonly found on the internet, but without further explanation could be very off putting to the holiday maker! Mountains will always alter their local climate where-ever they are in the world, and this is no exception. Note that only a few hours drive away at the eastern end of Andalucia is Europe’s only desert!

The most green and humid areas of the Spanish Peninsular are the northern coastal zones which face the Atlantic ocean and from the Pyrenees mountain chain to the Catalan coast of the Mediterranean. These areas have rainy weather with a precipitation average of over 800 mm per annum and yet statistically the village of Grazalema in Andalusia is famous because of the fact that it receives the most rainfall in the  iberian Peninsular. Some years recording more than 2000mm. (more…)

Posted in Andalucia, Environment, Extreme weather Spain, nature and landscape, Sierra de Grazalema |

Miguel Delibes dies

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

delibes001

The great Spanish author Miguel Delibes died on Friday 12 March. His love of the rural life and landscape of Castilla and hunting surfaced repeatedly in his books.

He won the Spanish-speaking world’s top literary award, the Premio Cervantes in 1993, along with the Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras, and was a member of the Spanish Royal Academy. The Cervantes Institute said Delibes’ passion for the countryside — and hunting — had given him a true feel for the decline of rural life and the fragility of the environment. “It is not going too far to say that this hunter who writes measures his passions with a shotgun resting on his shoulder, and in this he finds joy, anxieties and even fineness of spirit,” the institute said in a biography of Delibes.

TP notes on the forum

“The recurring theme of his works was social injustice and the contrast between rural life and modernity. His ability to portray the harshness of rural life in Castilla and the language of its people was amazing. Many of his novels deal with hunting – deeply rooted in Castilla – and his famous essay justifying his love of hunting, “La caza: mi punto de vista” , and in which he vehemently criticises the mass slaughter of captive pieces, which will undoubtedly strike a chord among some iberianatureforumers, expresses very well the sentiment of many people, hunters and critics alike.”

(more…)

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Posted in Castilla y León, hunting in Spain, nature and landscape, Spanish literature |