SPRING IN SURIANU MOUNTAINS

Polar bears

Noname

Hummingbirds

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North pole

Enviroment vs polution

My name is JESÚS

I'M FROM SPAIN.

I AM GOING TO TELL YOU ABOUT DOÑANA NATIONAL PARK, WHICH IS NEAR SANLÚCAR, WHERE I LIVE.

Coto Doñana national park

The Parque Nacional de Doñana is one of Europe's most important wetland reserves and a major site for migrating birds. It is an immense area; the parque itself and surrounding parque natural or Entorno de Doñana (a protected buffer zone) amount to over 1,300 sq km in the provinces of Huelva, Sevilla and Cádiz. It is internationally for recognised for its great ecological wealth. Doñana has become a key centre in the world of conservationism.

Doñana is well known for its enormous variety of bird species, either permanent residents, winter visitors from north and central Europe or summer visitors from Africa, like its numerous types of geese and colourful colonies of flamingo. It has one of the world's largest colonies of Spanish imperial eagles. The park as a whole comprises three distinct kinds of ecosystem: the marismas, the Mediterranean scrublands and the coastal mobile dunes with their beaches.

The configuration of the Parque Nacional de Doñana is a result of its past as the delta of the Guadalquivir river, the 'big river', or Wada-I-Kebir, of the Moors. But it is a delta with a difference. Unlike most, the river has only one outlet to the sea, just below Sanlúcar de Barrameda. The rest of what used to be its delta has gradually been blocked off by a huge sandbar that stretches from the mouth of the Río Tinto, near Palos de la Frontera, to the riverbank opposite Sanlúcar, and which the sea winds have gradually formed into high dunes. Behind this natural barrier stretches the marshlands (marismas).

The effect of this extraordinary mélange of land and water was to create an environment shunned by people but ideal for wildlife.

Meanwhile, adjoining areas of wetland were being dramatically reduced. Across the Guadalquivir vast marshes were drained and converted to farmland, until only the protected lands of the Doñana remained intact. Two of the Doñana's precious lynxes, for example, have been run over by cars on the highway to Matalascañas; cats and dogs straying out of the nearest towns have killed animals in the park, and birds that have overflown the fences have been gunned down by trigger-happy hunters despite stringent conservation laws.

  THE Entrance to the park is strictly controlled. You can take half-day trips with official guides or explore the environs of the visitors' centres on foot.

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