The spokesman for the Platform in Defense of County Irrigation from Huelva, Julio Diazhas assured today that WWF “lies by providing data fake without any scientific rigor” when he says that the Proposition of Law (PPL) would regularize 1,900 hectares, since it will be about 750. “Where does this data come from?, what is its scientific rigor?, how have they calculated it ?” Diaz wondered.
However, he has argued that the figure of some 750 hectares “has been determined by the Andalusian administration’s own technicians”, who assure that it would be between 700 and 800 hectares that must have obtained the approval of a technical office. The Platform thus criticizes “the lack of rigor” of the environmental group, “which increases the hectares to regularize because it is interested in that story to continue selling farmers in the province of Huelva as the bad guys in the story”, explained the spokesperson, Julio Diaz.
“A few months ago, WWF said that 1,600 hectares were going to be regularized, now, 1,900. Those who have increased the irrigable area by 20% are them, with a fact that is not true, used only to do damage ”.
Another of the arguments offered by WWF and which are not true is that “from 2004 the irrigated hectares have multiplied, even knowing that they were illegal”. This ruling is “totally false” since “the POTAD, which was published in 2004, differentiates between agricultural and forest hectares, never rainfed agricultural and irrigated agricultural. This differentiation does not reach until the Crown Plan in 2014”.
What does happen as of 2004 is that “farms are subsidized with European money that were agricultural in the POTAD, and that met all the requirements to be irrigable, and, even so, they were left out of the Special Plan.”
“A few months ago, WWF said that 1,600 hectares were going to be regularized, now, 1,900. Those who have increased the irrigable area by 20% are them with a fact that is not true, used only to do damage ”. In his statements, “WWF is acknowledging that a large number of hectares, which were being planted before 2004, were left out due to the 2004 still photo and is not an irrigable area.”
WWF falsehoods
Specifically, “30% of the area that WWF considers agricultural, some 500 hectares, was already being irrigated before 2004, and it was not considered irrigated in the Crown Plan due to the still photo.”
“When they argue that this regularizable surface is going to affect the aquifer and Doñana, they are telling another lie.” The Plan has two basins, the Tinto, Odiel y Piedras and the Guadalquivir and “the first does not affect the aquifer or Doñana, since it is 100% fed by surface water, coming from irrigation communities. This also occurs in much of the CHG area.” In addition, the Platform has insisted that “everything that can be regularized will always be irrigated with surface water, coming from the transfer.”
Díaz also regretted that WWF is a “partner” in the damage caused to families in 2014, with the approval of the Plan, “and, with its silence, in the current state of the Park, which led to the 2021 ruling.”
