On 30 March in the Spanish Ministry for Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs in Madrid, WWF Spain and SEO/BirdLife (Birdlife International´s partner in Spain) will launch their shared vision for the CAP beyond 2013. Their vision combines and translates the documents already published by BirdLife and WWF at EU level and applies it to Spanish circumstances.

The document takes as its starting point some of the grave – but still often unrecognised or flatly denied – failures of the CAP in Spain. These include exhausted and/or highly-polluted aquifers; desertification and salinised soils; widespread biodiversity decline; rural abandonment and depopulation. Furthermore, under the current CAP regime it is politically and practically impossible to meet the enormous responsibility Spain has within the EU for nature conservation, and for the Natura 2000 network in particular. Spain has over 14 million ha designated as a Natura 2000 site, some 75% of which is used for some form of agriculture, especially extensive practices associated with dryland cereal cultivation, ‘dehesa’ wood pastures, and livestock rearing in steppes and upland pastures.

... the present CAP in Spain – even after the Health Check – fails to support adequately the extensive and lower impact forms of agriculture needed to reverse damaging trends and to safeguard Spain´s unique and precious landscapes and wildlife.

SEO/BirdLife and WWF Spain argue that, by following the agricultural intensification model imported from northern Europe, the present CAP in Spain – even after the Health Check – fails to support adequately the extensive and lower impact forms of agriculture needed to reverse damaging trends and to safeguard Spain´s unique and precious landscapes and wildlife. A radical redirection of funding is needed, from commodity-based single farm payments towards rewarding farmers adequately for practices which safeguard the water environment, conserve biodiversity, maintain rich landscapes, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and create the environment needed to attract inward investment, diversify the rural economy and stem depopulation.

At the launch event on 30 March, the opening speech will be made by Josep Puxeu, Spanish Deputy Minister for Rural Affairs and Water, and following the presentation of the NGO document by SEO/Birdlife, there will be further interventions from the Spanish Ministry and the European Commission, with a commentary from Ariel Brunner (BirdLife International) on the debate in Brussels. There will then be two panel discussions (first from the agricultural and rural development sectors and then from wider interests such as consumers, transparency campaigners, development NGOs and academia) in which these key actors in the debate will be invited to react to the WWF-SEO/BirdLife document.

The SEO/BirdLife- WWF Spain Vision document will be available on 30 March, and key conclusions from the launch event will be widely circulated as part of the NGOs’ efforts to promote a wide-ranging and open debate on the future of the CAP in Spain.

For more details contact: agricultura[at]seo.org