Farmers jailed for water-tapping at Spanish nature reserve

A group of five farmers, four brothers and their sister, have been found guilty of crimes against the environment after extracting water from a feed supplying Doñana National Park.

Doñana, one of Europe's most wildlife-rich wetlands, is at risk of desertification. The sibling farmers had extracted 19 million cubic litres of water for their Hato Blanco Viejo ranch between 2008 and 2013, resulting in permanent lagoons becoming seasonal.

The wetlands of Doñana National Park are under threat from desertification. The farmers diverted so much water as to render some permanent pools seasonal (Gabriela Coronado Hernández).

The ruling on 18 September said the farmers had been "putting the ecosystem at serious risk through the systematic and extensive extraction" of water supplying the national park.

If upheld by a higher court, the ruling would be the first to hand out a prison sentence for illegal water-tapping from Doñana, an area that has suffered from serious droughts in recent years.

Since the late 1990s the defendants had already received more than a dozen fines for water-related charges and have now been ordered to pay €2 million in compensation to the Guadalquivir Water Authority. They have also been banned from cultivating crops for two years.

As well as hosting a huge range of wetland birds, including Collared Pratincole and Marbled Duck, Doñana is well-known for its population of Iberian Lynx, which are known to rely on the wetland landscape of the national park. It is a popular destination for birders and wildlife-watchers from around the world.

Andalucia's government is pushing for further irrigation rights around Doñana, despite warnings from UNESCO and the European Commission, by seeking to regularise berry farms that are currently irrigated by illegal wells.

If the bill is passed in the next few weeks, around 1,500 ha of crops could be legitimised, making the future of the UNESCO-listed reserve uncertain, according to environmental groups.

The draft bill was a focal point in political campaigning this year ahead of a general election in July.