News
Cabañeros, the national park <<neither-nor>>:
neither tourism nor hunting
By Mariano Gómez TiernoPresident of Cabañeros Hortur (Association of Tourism Businesses of Horcajo de los Montes)
Magnificent places that should remain unchanged for ever!
General Prim
This phrase, spoken by General Prim when he visited the Cabañeros area, defines very well the beauty and natural wealth of a land that is extraordinarily well preserved today and holds the highest designation, that of national park. And it has been so thanks to the ways and customs of the people, who have kept, since time immemorial, a sustainable balance between their own survival and the conservation of nature.
On 5 December the moratorium ends and hunting will no longer be allowed in national parks.
Cabañeros is a national park much affected by this ban, since inside it there are large private estates, where hunting is the main natural resource and without it the viability and value of these estates is non-existent. The estate owners are in charge of keeping the animal population properly controlled.
Moreover, hunting is one of the main economic activities, together with tourism, in these villages around the park. Activities that contribute to the survival of declining municipalities that are part of what has come to be called <<«Empty Spain»>>.
Cabañeros National Park has not been the engine of economic and tourism development that we all expected and that the authorities of the time led us to believe, in those hard years when many of us fought for its declaration.
The management of public use of the park has been very poor throughout these 25 years, recently celebrated.
The result is that Cabañeros NP is the last – by a long way from the average – of the 15 parks in the national network in number of visitors and possibly the least known. Something inexplicable, being a park with privileged nature, with beautiful landscapes of the Montes de Toledo and with a great and rich biodiversity of flora and fauna. Besides lying in the centre of the peninsula and having a large expanse of public land. Cabañeros is regarded as the best representative of Mediterranean woodland in Europe.
The ban on hunting on these estates is not good news, since it will contribute to worsening the village’s economy and to the owners abandoning the upkeep and conservation of the estates in exchange for financial compensation from the State.
This ban will benefit nobody, since the owners will be left with useless estates, we taxpaying citizens will have to pay compensation, the villages around Cabañeros will grow poorer still and nature will cease to <<remain unchanged>>, as General Prim wished.
With the ban on hunting in Cabañeros National Park, the authorities will have to find a solution that is not so catastrophic for all concerned.And as for tourism in Cabañeros, it is essential and urgent to undertake, now, new measures in the park’s public-use system, to help establish suitable sustainable tourism that is respectful of nature and socially acceptable.
Meanwhile, for our village: NEITHER TOURISM NOR HUNTING.
Photos by Diego González Ragel, born in Jerez de la Frontera in 1893. He was a great sports photographer; his specialities were horse riding, hunting and motor racing. He was also the Bank of Spain’s staff photographer from 1941 until his death in 1951.
Sources: