The Minister of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, Isabel García Tejerina, has presented the new Plan to Promote the Environment for Adaptation to Climate Change in Spain, (PIMA Adapta), which includes an investment of 12.1 million euros for more than 46 actions on the coast, the public hydraulic domain and the National Parks. The content of this initiative, whose actions will begin next April, and which starts with the aim of “launching, with a pioneering character and with a vocation for continuity over time, specific projects for adaptation to climate change”, as he highlighted.
This plan includes, for the first time, a battery of actions that will take into account the state of knowledge of the impacts of climate change, as well as the risks and vulnerability for the design of the projects on which subsequent monitoring will be carried out, according to García Tejerina. “We have focused on reducing CO2 emissions, here in Spain. And to this end, we have launched a whole battery of greenhouse gas mitigation plans and projects with the intention of reducing our emissions and at the same time creating economic activity and quality employment,” he summarised.
The minister recalled the Climate Projects and the Pima projects. The first, 100 projects already underway, with which emission reductions have been purchased from companies or entities that develop initiatives that reduce emissions in diffuse sectors, with a total investment of 28 million euros; And the second, the PIMA Aire, for the replacement of commercial vehicles; PIMA Sol, to encourage the efficient rehabilitation of hotels; PIMA Land, to renew the agricultural machinery fleet and PIMA Transport for the scrapping and renovation of trucks and buses.
Isabel García Tejerina explained that coastal areas are the ones with the greatest risk of suffering the impacts, so the reform of the Coastal Law approved in 2013 included the development of a Strategy for the Adaptation of the Coast for these purposes, currently in the processing phase of strategic environmental assessment. Thus, the PIMA ADAPTA Plan incorporates more than 40 projects in the field of coastal management in Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia, the Basque Country, Catalonia, the Valencian Community, Murcia, Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla.
The aim is to reduce the exposure of the coast to the sea and, to this end, actions will be carried out to regenerate beaches, restore dunes, stabilise the lower parts of estuaries and protection works to reduce erosion. In addition, it plans to maintain the good condition of coastal ecosystems with projects for the restoration and protection of marshes or wetlands, and initiatives to promote coastal or marine protected areas, among others, together with the improvement of research and knowledge and other awareness-raising and dissemination actions in this area. As for the public hydraulic domain, the minister announced that this Plan launches the necessary work to achieve the formal Declaration of the River Nature Reserves that are delimited in the hydrological plans. Once these Reserves have been identified and declared, a Pilot Management Plan will be drawn up for a selected Reserve that will allow it to be converted into a reference value, both scientifically and socially and culturally.
The restoration of the lagoon of Lastras de Cuéllar and Hontalbilla, in Segovia, is also planned, with the aim of recovering these lagoons located in the great sandy area of Tierra de Pinares. The minister recalled that it is a unique ecosystem in the interior of the peninsula and of great ornithological value, and that it requires “immediate environmental restoration” due to the existing risk of degradation and even loss of the ecosystem. Likewise, fluvial restoration will be addressed in the Ucero River, in Soria, with the aim of rearranging the old flood defenses existing in it, especially in the surroundings of Burgo de Osma. “Our purpose, in addition, is to meet the objectives of the Management Plan of this protected Natural Area, fix CO2 by increasing the riverside forest, create fish passages in the existing dams and improve the social use of this environment,” said García Tejerina.
Regarding National Parks, the minister stressed that although these types of ecosystems show a greater capacity for resistance than other more degraded ones, climate change can produce different types of effects that must be foreseen and reduce their impact as far as possible. He has detailed that the PIMA Adapta foresees the restoration and creation of new habitats for amphibians, since it is one of the vertebrate groups that will suffer the most from the increase in temperatures and the decrease in rainfall, as well as the implementation of a device for the detection and early warning of invasive species. Another major threat to biodiversity. Adaptation management of forest masses to climate change will also be carried out.
