The Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment has coordinated the presentation of the project for the recovery of the marbled teal (Marmaronetta angustirostris) in Spain, recently submitted to the 2016 call for proposals of the European funding programme LIFE. The general objective of this initiative is to ensure that the Spanish population of marbled teal is no longer considered “endangered”, promoting and promoting the necessary actions to eliminate the risk of extinction it faces and leading it to a more favourable conservation status.
The marbled teal is an emblematic web-footed waterfowl in Spain. It is distributed from the Iberian Peninsula, the Canary Islands and the Maghreb to East Turkestan, Punjab and Central Asia. The Spanish population is divided into two main nuclei: the Andalusian (centred on the Guadalquivir Marshes) and the Valencian (in the Baix Vinalopó Wetlands). The marbled teal in our country is currently at its most critical demographic moment, so it is a threatened species classified as “endangered” in the Spanish Catalogue of Threatened Species, with a negative dynamic and at serious risk of disappearing.
The project submitted to the 2016 LIFE call is coordinated by the Biodiversity Foundation and has as partners the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment, through the General Directorate of Environmental Quality and Evaluation and the Natural Environment, the Junta de Andalucía, the Government of the Region of Murcia, the Generalitat Valenciana, the Government of the Balearic Islands, the Association of Naturalists of the Southeast (ANSE) and SEO/BirdLife.
The implementation period of the initiative is established as five years, from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2022, and an estimated budget of 7.3 million euros, with a contribution from the European Commission of 75% (4.9 million euros).
Within the framework of the project “Coordinated actions for the recovery of the marbled teal in Spain”, coordinated actions will be launched in 7 of the 13 critical places for the species, which involve 83% of the teal pairs according to the Conservation Strategy. Actions will be carried out in Andalusia (Almeria, Cadiz and Seville), the Valencian Community (Alicante), the Region of Murcia and the Balearic Islands (Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza and Formentera).
The aim is to recover the population of the species by reversing its negative trend through actions that include the promotion of sustainable management of wetlands through the acquisition of land; the correction and minimization of the causes of unnatural mortality; the promotion of ex situ conservation; the promotion of land stewardship agreements, better knowledge of the species applied to management; support for the dissemination, communication and awareness of the conservation of this species and the promotion of international cooperation in this area.
To enrich the proposal, the Biodiversity Foundation launched an innovative participation process in June through which interested parties were able to provide comments and actions to the project and thanks to which 29 letters of support have been received.
