Doñana National Park — Attraction in Almonte

Shame, shame, such a shame. The once-great wetland, the greatest even, in the Western Mediterranean region, the National Park of Coto Doñana is now a pale and sickly shadow of what it used to be; of what it could still be, in fact, if society and, above all, the regional authorities, ever recovers its senses.

And this in spite of Coto Doñana being UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994, a listed Ramsar site (wetlands of international importance), a Biosphere Reserve, a Special Protected Area, and more. So what’s happened to lead the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) to exclude the Coto Doñana from its green list in 2023 - the first ever park for this to happen to - due to the ongoing freefall in its biodiversity?

The finger points mostly in the direction of the Junta de Andalucía, which is the main body with the authority and responsibility for carrying out measures to halt and reverse the deterioration in the park’s loss of biodiversity. To do a proper job the Junta should be facing full-on the single most important issue on which hinges the survival of the park as such: water.

Of course, when it rains a lot, there’s water, almost for everything and for everyone. However, in these times of global warming and climate change, that is rarely the case in Doñana. More often than not drought, or the threat of it, is never far away. In 2023 it was reported that 59 % of the largest lagoons in Doñana had not been filled since at least 2013. What’s more, the three “permanent” lagoons which never dried out in the summer have gone ahead and dried out in the summer.

The main problem is not that there isn’t water; it’s where the available water is going, namely (1) intensive agriculture, with irrigation for crops such as rice, cotton and strawberries (the latter covering almost 6,000 hectares), largely extracted from the aquifer illegally and (2) tourist developments and their unsustainable demand for water, especially in the summer (Matalascañas, for example, has a summer population of 150, 000 people).

Nevertheless, when there’s water in the lagoons there are good times to be had by visiting birders. We at Birding In Spain have been organizing birding tours with 2 or 3-day stays in the park since 2011. And there have been many great days of birding for us from then to now. Greater Flamingos are common and very visible, while you’ll have a harder job finding rarer breeders such as White-headed Duck, Red-knobbed Coot, or Marbled Teal, and of course it helps to know where to concentrate your efforts to locate these specialties.

There are beautiful Black-necked Grebes in breeding plumage, handsome Red Crested Pochards, passage Garganey, herons, including Squacco Heron, Purple Heron and Little Bittern, Black Stork, Whiskered Terns, delightful Collared Pratincoles, exotic Black-headed Weavers and Common Waxbills, Penduline Tits, Savi’s, Great Reed and Isabelline Warblers, Black-winged Kites and Lesser Kestrels, Calandra, Mediterranean and Greater Short-toed Larks, the Spanish Imperial Eagle, Red-necked Nightjar …

So let’s just hope that not all is lost, and that determined action will be taken to reverse the disastrous processes of the last decades and to restore the National Park of Coto Doñana to its...

Guy Mountfort was the prime instigator of the successful financing for purchasing land that saved the Doñana as we know it today. And yet you would never know it, unless you read various literature and references made in some official documents. It simply beggars belief that no visitor centre, no monument, no plaque or Park literature pays respect to the saviour of the land which forms the main part of this wonderful National Park. 1960 rumours were heard developers had their sights on the lands of the Doñana By 1961 these rumours were confirmed, there were plans for a holiday camp stretching the full length of the sand beaches of the Doñana and the worst was plans to drain the protective eastern barrier of the marismas! The most notable of local people to side with the crusade of saving the area were Don Manuel and Don Mauricio González, as part owners of the Coto, with much to gain financially from the proposed developments; they heroically supported efforts to preserve it. Money was needed to stem the advances of developers and Guy Mountfort mobilised support, a move that led to the renowned formation of the World Wildlife Fund. So eventually money was raised and with the support of the Spanish Government the area was purchased and the National Park came into being. Whilst local park centres and reserve areas pay tribute to local Spanish pioneers, just where is the local recognition for the hero and champion of the Doñana, Guy Mountfort? For me it is an extremely sad omission by national and local authorities alike. Be very sure, if it were not for Guy Mountfort, there would...

Normally I don't write reviews, but this time I feel like it is needed. We visited Donana at the end of September as part of our Tour across Andalucia. We booked a Tour with Donana Reservations.

I recommend people to not go to Donana from July on out. Many people would like to go and see a rich diversity of both the environment (e.g. trees, grass, vegatation) as well as animals (e.g. flamengo's, large birds), however because of the draught there is no water in this period and is therefore an arid area. We were, however, lucky to see a Lynx.

Even the Tour guide suggested on numerous occasions that it was a pity that we didn't go in Spring and went on and on about 'how it looked in Spring'. For me, spotting tiny birds and seeing some oak trees without leaves and subsequently talking hours about both, is not really a trip and definitely not worthy of my money. The Tour guide was extremely enthousiastic and tried to take away the relative emptiness of the trip, which, for me, made the entire experience feel like a parody. I'm from the Netherlands and there we have many (free to access) Parcs with a much richer diversity.

Donana has some appeal that only flourishes in Spring. In the Summer period, however, I would advice El Torcal, Caminito del Rey, or some walk / 4x4 in the Sierra Nevada. Much more to see ánd so much cheaper. We decided to skip the afternoon session (we booked a full day) and rather spent it at the beach of Matalascanas after a visit of the fun town...