Author Description

In this scenario, it is not surprising that, since the mid-nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century, projects aimed at the search for greater forest and agricultural performance that developed in the different European territories and, especially, in the North of the Iberian Peninsula, identify wet heathlands and peatlands as "idle" lands, which should be subject to sanitation and transformation, either in pastures, or in forest plantations of exotic species or destined to accommodate new urban settlements. As a result, extensive areas occupied by these environments, which characterized for centuries the landscape of large coastal and interior spaces of the Iberian Atlantic Region, were altered and degraded, reducing their surface or disappearing and experiencing, in any case, a significant loss of its biological diversity and its contribution to the ecosystem services inherent to its status as wetlands. The promulgation of the Habitat Directive (DC 92/43 / EEC) highlighted the degree of threat of wet heathland and the various types of peatlands within the EU, identifying them as habitats of community interest and designating the largest part of the types considered as priority habitats. However, the delays in the configuration of the Natura 2000 Network, the lack of vigilance in the obligations of protection and conservation of biodiversity, as well as the laxity in implementing determined policies and programs, in many cases financed with funds from the European Union, allowed that in many territories of the Atlantic Biogeographical Region of the Spanish territory, the loss of wet heathland and peat bogs continued to be increased, reaching rates of destruction even higher than the decades prior to the integration in the European Union.