Environmental groups supporting the Santa Pola Natural Park have been complaining for a number of years over the increasing degradation caused by the N-332 road as it passes through this natural space.
They have been calling for action from those responsible for the road to adopt measures to alleviate the dumping of waste, the running over of wild fauna and the serious impact on the landscape caused by this infrastructure.
La Talaiola- Ecologists in Action and Friends of the Wetlands of the South of Alicante (AHSA) have repeatedly addressed the Ministry of Ecological Transition demanding the drafting of a project to minimise impacts and landscape integration of the N-332 in Las Salinas de Santa Pola, a document whose implementation is contemplated in the Governing Plan and Use and Management (PRUG) of this natural park and in which a period of six months is given from its entry into force, the PRUG has been in force since 2010, to the department with competences in environmental matters to urge the Ministry of Public Works to prepare it.
The environmental groups denounce that the response of the Ministry to these demands, was to give a grudging answer, in the turn of requests and questions of the last meeting of the Governing Board held on November 11. And they wonder if the degradation caused by the N-332 in this wetland is not important enough to dedicate a point to it on the agenda of the annual meeting of the Governing Board. AHSA and the Talaiola affirm that the explanations given at that meeting, by the director of the Natural Park, were limited to reporting the holding of a meeting with representatives of the State Highway Unit in Alicante in which they stated the lack of funds from this administration for this action and that by holding it the provisions of the PRUG were complied with.
The ecologists consider this attitude completely irresponsible, with a clear abandonment of the functions of conservation of the natural environment that this administration has entrusted and have once again demanded, through separate letters, that the work of drafting a plan begin immediately impact minimization and landscape integration of the N-332 road as it passes through the Salinas de Santa Pola Natural Park.
La Talaiola and AHSA affirm that 35 years after the declaration of the Salinas de Santa Pola Natural Park was approved, the state of degradation and abandonment suffered by it worsens day by day. A wetland of great environmental value that is home to unique ecosystems and species that is crossed from north to south by a highway with a high intensity of traffic, supporting enormous anthropic pressure and where there are not even road signs indicating that you are crossing a natural park or facilities for the collection of rubbish according to the load of visitors that it supports and where the waste thrown from the vehicles or the remains of accidents rot in the bottoms of ponds and salt marshes.
As a result of this lack of action after well over a decade of complaining, the environmental groups have organised a protest and information activity for Sunday, February 5, to denounce the situation of mistreatment of the Salinas de Santa Pola and demand urgent palliative measures.
