Roads ruining natural spaces
A PROTEST about the growing damage being done to the Santa Pola salt lakes due to the N-332 road running right through them was staged to mark World Wetlands day on Sunday.
For several years, the ecologist groups represented on the Salinas de Santa Pola natural park governing board have been calling for measures to reduce rubbish being dropped, wildlife being run over and the aesthetic impact of the road.
La Talaiola-Ecologistas en Acción and the friends of the south Alicante wetlands (AHSA) have repeatedly demanded that the regional government get the ministry for public works to complete a project to minimise these impacts and integrate the road into the landscape, which should have been done in 2010.
At the last board meeting, on November 11, the park’s director only said a meeting had been held with the state roads department which said there was no funding for this and the ministry had already been asked to take steps.
The ecologists claimed this was ‘totally irresponsible’ and a ‘clear dereliction of duties to conserve the environment’.
After 35 years since the park was established, the degradation is worsening and this valuable wetland with singular ecosystems and species is not even signposted to let drivers know they are crossing a natural park.
Moreover, there are not enough rubbish containers for the number of visitors and waste thrown from vehicles and remnants of accidents are left to rot on the bottom of the pools.
The AHSA has also lodged an appeal against the provincial government’s approval of a project to widen the CV-861 along the south of El Hondo natural park.
The ecologists have also spent years denouncing the provincial government for ignoring the regional government’s requirement that the speed limit be reduced from 70 to 50kph, due to the increasing amount of wildlife being run over.
They note that, aside from needing measures to integrate this road into the landscape and reconcile the environment with traditional farming activity and traffic, the management plan for this protected area does not allow the route or width of roads within it to be changed.
The regional department for the ecological transition is not doing enough to make the provincial government manage the road in accordance with the environmental values of the natural space it crosses, according to AHSA.
They argue that roads crossing protected natural spaces, like the CV-861, create a barrier effect on wildlife that needs to be evaluated regularly.
They also insist that the provincial government’s ‘lack of sensitivity to conservation’ in the management of its roads is ‘unacceptable’, including ‘unlawful’ actions such as constructing a bridge over the train tracks in San Isidro, destroying over 10 hectares of salt marsh and part of an archaeological site.
This was reported by AHSA members but the deadline for prosecution expired after the trial was postponed four times in six years, they lamented.