DOÑANA

Laura Ramos Castillo

Ana Del Águila Márquez

4ºA

The natural park of Doñana is located in the community of Andalucía, between Huelva and Sevilla. The total surface of the park is 50.720 and the surface of the limited zone is 13.540 ha.

It has a very biological diversity and three big ecosystems: the marshes, the mobiles dunes and the reserves.

Doñana´s history begins in 2nd century bC., with the settlements that extends during the V century a.C. they devoted to the fishing and the salting and it was situated in the area called Guadalquivir´s marshes nowadays.

When the Arabs left Andalucía in the 12th century, Alfonso X the Wise began with the Christianization of the territory and the buildings of the first chapels.

However, it is in the 15th century when the noble control, the first limits and the prohibition of the use which damage the hunting took place.

After that, the duke of Medina-Sidonia built a palace for her wife, Ana Gómez de Mendoza y Silva, in the middle of the wood. So now this territory was known as Ana´s wood. Nowadays it is called Doñana.

During the second period some uses are consolidated: the logging forest, the maintenance of the pasture, etc….

Finally it became a national park.

How is this park preserved?

Doñana is a natural space where a lot of species in danger of extinction have found a place where they can live safely. Throwing paper on the ground is forbidden, and the hunting is not allowed in specific areas of the park.

In the past many families lived in some huts but nowadays only two families live

Biocenosis:

The biocenosis is the group of organisms of all the species that lived in a specific space called biotope that offer the necessaries environmental conditions for their survival.

Biotope:

The biotope is the zone where all the organisms live. It is made by the environment around this organisms and the substratum where they can move in. We cannot limit the biotopo because it is too difficult.

The beach: Doñana´s beaches are one of the most beautiful in Spain, they are large, with thin sand and a lot of birds.

On the beach there are lots of birds who can hide in the sand when the tide goes ou, these animals become bird´s food easily.

Also tides are important in this kind of landscape, because they bring the sand to the beach forming cliffs.

Dunes and farmyards: The dunes form one of the ecosystems of the National Park. They are mountains of sand in movement.

The wind moves the sand to the shore. The dunes drag the trees, many of them die; only a small part survives.

Reserves: they are the steadiest ecosystem because they do not have strange changes during the year.

Animals love this place because of the mazes formed by the bushes, where they can hide and are safe. The reserves are made out of sand mainly, but without movement. The ground is rolling, with crests, depressions and groundwater.

The bank: it is the border between the reserves and the marshes, and between the marshes and the dunes. It is a fringe between 200 and 1500

meters. It is covered by vegetables with perfect conditions of ground and water.

Marshes: they are plains which change completely during the seasons.

Overcoat birds live in this ecosystem.

The ground is clay, which conserves the water in the surface. It has gaps like:

Pikes: they have until 1.20 meters of depth, in summer they are oasis.

Veins: they are tight and high, and they do not flood.

Caños: they are deep beds of water.

Dry marshes: they flood in short periods of tie and with shallowness, the ground has lot of salt, so there lie fez plants, like almajo.

Flooded marshes: they flood every year, from October to June. There is water where plants like reed mace, giant reed or castanet live.

Past activities in Doñana:

Hunting:

In the past it was the main activity because there were lots of animals, like stags, fallow deers, wild boars, rabbits and different birds.

The horse was a way of transport, and cows too.

Fishing:

It took place in the marshes and also in rivers.

They used to fish tunas, soles, eel, shrimp, clams, crayfish …

Garden:

Each family had a vegetable garden next to the house. With the vegetable garden they got all the food except oil. These gardens were called “navazos”, and they were water by groundwater.

An essential food was the honey, every family had an own beehive.

The salt:

For a long time the salt mines were exploited in the river shore, near the mouth of Sanlúcar. In that way they get the salt.

Present activities in Doñana:

Nowadays hunting is not allowed and neither is cutting trees, the most popular activities are tourism and investigation.