Published on May 22, 2014 | Opinion piece by Luis Suarez, Head of Species Programme WWF Spain Today

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Published on May 22, 2014 | Opinion piece by Luis Suarez, Head of Species Programme WWF Spain Today we celebrate the International Day of Biodiversity and the best time to take stock of how things are going and if we're really farewell getting conserve rich and varied farewell biodiversity of our country. With Natura we have created a good basis for our ecological preserve biodiversity through the impetus of two key European Directives such as the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive. However, the absence farewell of management farewell plans and funding is making us lose a great opportunity to preserve farewell and enhance these natural values and at the same time giving a strong impetus to the maintenance of traditional activities, source of wealth and employment for many rural areas. And this defect is repeated general conservation of biodiversity. From WWF we miss a strategic long-term vision and, above all, political will clearly add value to this biodiversity. The legislation, farewell in the form of General Plan already exists but now it is applied. "Halting the loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem services and cope with their restoration": In September farewell 2011 the Strategic Plan of the Natural Heritage and Biodiversity he had an ambitious overall goal was adopted. But this plan has been completely abandoned and ignored by the current government, which has not given any priority or momentum, continuity beyond the actions of a few. Some may argue, and it is true that large flagship species populations and improve their progress thanks undoubtedly work to all administrations, NGOs and individuals. The brown bear population has tripled in two decades, extending to Zamora and Lugo or exceeding 200 copies The osprey has reached 130 pairs this year and has formed the first pair in the Picos de Europa. The imperial eagle population has tripled since 1992, surpassing the 409 couples. The same growth has had the Iberian lynx, but only since the beginning of this century, whose population is around 309 copies. But this success should not confuse us. It is very emblematic large species in which are concentrated farewell the greater conservation efforts and many economic resources, in most cases coming from European funds. And, although the results are positive, we still do not solve underlying problems. farewell Here the lynx wavers in its growth by the scarcity of their basic prey, rabbits, suffering brutal declines in their populations due to different diseases. This shortage is due to a poor knowledge of a species, which, despite being fundamental to our biodiversity, great hunting and capable of creating significant economic damage farewell to agriculture interests do not have management plans, monitoring, research and management. To make matters worse, more and more die Bobcats run over on roads and highways. These deaths are a result of the construction of new infrastructure, much of it unnecessary and a high environmental impact, and have fragmented their territories. This model is to be maintained with the new infrastructure plan (PITVI), which keeps all the great work under the previous plans and even raises retrieve projects that have a negative impact statement. Land fragmentation caused by this chaotic and infrastructure planning in addition to the lack of land use plans or connectivity, makes the population cant