Galician Atlantic Islands National Park: Challenges for the Conservation and Management of a Maritime-Terrestrial Protected Area

Abstract

At present, biodiversity conservation and management in Spanish National Parks in Spain must respond to a series of regulations at a European, national and regional level, also adapting to scientific-technical progress. The availability of increasingly precise data on the values to be conserved (ecosystems, habitats, species, geodiversity) in these protected areas enables more detailed management, but also requires more rigorous, powerful, and multidisciplinary tools. Maritime-terrestrial national parks are highly sensitive areas to public use, so their impact must be one of the most important factors to take into account when planning their management. This work evaluates the past and present challenges for conservation in Galician Atlantic Islands National Park (NW Spain), where biodiversity conservation and management has evolved over time in a significant way, providing a valid case study applicable to other national parks worldwide, as well as similar situations in other contexts and scenarios. Future challenges are arising in the National Park to improve the conservation status of natural habitats and wildlife, mainly through new European initiatives that may establish important synergies with other countries.

Protecting Wetlands: Insights from the Northern Iberian Peninsula (Galicia, NW Spain)

“…This regional category has been maintained by Law 5/2019, which in addition has incorporated the Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance into the Galician legal framework, within the group category of APII, inheriting the model previously established for the Spanish territory by Law 42/2007. However, nowadays this regional category of PNA has only been applied to the first 5 Ramsar sites designed in Galicia (Table 3), as the last one designed (Galician Atlantic Islands) in 2021 [45] does not have received yet the designation as a Protected Wetland, nor has the procedure for such designation been initiated, nor has a preventive protection regime for the site been established.…”