The real estate and clinical facilities company of media surgeon Pedro Cavadas has already encountered its first obstacles in the construction of a mouflon hunting farm in the municipality of Mira, located in the Serranía Baja de Cuenca, almost on the border with the Valencian Community.
The aim of this project, the details of which have already been put forward elDiarioclm.esconsists of raising these animals and then hunting them. In other words, releasing them alive, as is the case with other species. This is an initiative that has already been born of controversy due to the rejection of environmental groups, local residents and citizen groups that fight against the proliferation of macro-farms in Castilla-La Mancha.
The promoter company is Ruoxiao SL, whose owner is Dr. Pedro Cavadas, well known for his microsurgical reconstruction operations. He is also an experienced archery hunter, as he himself has stated in numerous interviews and public appearances.
This company is listed in the Trade Register as a Public Limited Company and its activity in the National Nomenclature of Economic Activities (CNAE) is the rental of real estate for own account. Also included are the operation of clinical facilities by doctors for diagnosis and surgical interventions, as well as the purchase, sale, subdivision and development of all types of land.
The game species targeted for production on the planned farm is the mouflon, native to the islands of Corsica, Sardinia and Cyprus, having proliferated thanks to the introductions made in the hunting grounds. Its ideal habitat corresponds to mountainous areas, both in open forests and in large pastures. In the province of Cuenca, the mouflon is expanding, highlighting the Sierra de Altomira and the Serranía Baja.
In parallel with the controversy over its new project, the administrative file for the construction of the mouflon farm has continued its course this year. A few months ago, the Provincial Delegation of Sustainable Development of Cuenca formulated a first environmental impact report on the first phase of the project: the enclosure of the farm within the Hoyas de Caramba Estate, in the municipality of Cuenca, Mira, on an area of 322 hectares.
This is a preliminary analysis document, before the final environmental assessment, but it already provides some relevant details and many objections from the Castilian-La Mancha Administration.
According to this report, the initial production objectives are focused on the genetic improvement, replacement and progressive replacement of existing specimens in the adjacent reserve, also owned by Ruoxiao with an area of 569 hectares and located in the municipality of Villargordo del Cabriel (Valencia).
As a second objective, this farm will produce specimens for commercialization, making live sales in other areas or marketing its meat and by-products. The objective is to introduce an initial population of 129 specimens, 120 females and 9 stallions.
Waste at ZEPA
During the first period of processing and consultations, carried out a year ago, allegations were made to the project by, among others, the Mira City Council, the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar, the Spanish Ornithological Society (SEO) or the Ecologists in Action of La Manchuela (Cuenca and Albacete), as well as several individuals. But the findings made by the regional government, once the documents in the file had been analyzed, go further.
First, he points out in the previous report that the project does not indicate the origin of the water to supply the animals. Let us recall in this regard that there is an adjacent reserve, the one mentioned in Villalgordo del Cabriel, and that “the cumulative and synergistic effect has not been analyzed” with the reserve already created. He also warns that the company does not describe the management of waste generated by the activity.
In addition, he adds that the northern area of the perimeter enclosure borders the Special Area for the Protection of Birds (ZPS) and the Special Area of Conservation (ZEC) called “Hoces del Cabriel, Guadazaón and Ojos de Moya”, belonging to the Natura Network. The management plan for this protected area establishes compatible uses “as long as they do not cause appreciable environmental impacts”.
The report describes some species of birds in the area, such as the Bonelli’s eagle, currently in danger of extinction in the regional catalogue of Castilla-la Mancha. Specifically, in the aforementioned SPA, close to the Cavadas project, there are “historical nesting and breeding territories of this species”. To this, it adds distribution areas for forest birds of prey such as the booted eagle, classified as “of special interest”.
Thus, according to the report of the Natural Environment and Biodiversity Service of Cuenca, the main repercussions of the enclosure and the hunting park will be, in its construction phase, “discomfort for the fauna and an impact on the natural vegetation, mainly in the installation works and the maintenance of the fences.
But there is more. Warning that this same enclosure will cause the “detraction of the habitat and the displacement of other game species present” such as roe deer, fallow deer, red deer, ibex and wild boar, to the lands adjacent to, among others, the aforementioned SPA. This, without counting “the fragmentation of the habitat and the barrier effect for protected fauna”.
It also warns of the risks of damage to vegetation if the loading of specimens during exploitation compromises the natural regeneration of the forest, as well as the occurrence of erosive phenomena and loss of soil or impact on hygrophilous plant communities (which need wetlands) which are protected on seepages and water outcrops during the construction of ponds, by depriving them of this water resource.
With all this, the regional government concludes that due to the topographical characteristics of the farm, on a slope with slopes leading to a ravine and with predominant vegetation of pine forests, the project “does not seem to have characteristics to address the work of breeding, management, health control and surveillance typical of a production farm, in addition to assuming an enclosure of greater area and length with consequent barrier effect and fragmentation of the habitat on wildlife.
This argument is based on the Regulations of the Castilla-La Mancha Hunting Law, which stipulates the requirements for big game hunting farms: the maximum area that the farm can occupy will be that which allows the total population existing within the farm to be controlled. “The design parameters of the project presented do not meet this requirement,” the report points out.
The problems do not stop there. The analysis document also reveals that the promoter does not describe the breeding program “in sufficient detail” and that the conditions are also not evaluated “taking into account the maximum mouflon population, based on productivity and seasonality.”
“Accumulation of impacts”
Following this analysis, and taking into account the nature of the impact, its probability and “the possible accumulation with the impacts of other existing projects in the area”, the Provincial Delegation of the Government of Castilla-La Mancha establishes that the project must be subject to an ordinary environmental impact assessment, that is, of a broader nature, for having “significant effects on the environment”.
This media has again requested the evaluation of Dr. Pedro Cavadas through letters addressed to the promoting company as well as to the Foundation and the clinic that bear his name. There has been no response on this occasion either.
Although it has no more than a thousand inhabitants, Mira is the seventh largest municipality in the province of Cuenca as it occupies more than 200 square kilometers. The most important woody crops such as vines, almond trees, fruit trees and olive trees abound in its fields. Cereals such as wheat and barley are also grown and there are abundant orchards near the Ojos de Moya River that crosses the city (now called the Mira River) and irrigates the fields until it flows into the Contreras reservoir.
The news of the Cavadas project has already spread through the streets of the city. Although this project is closer to the population center of Villargordo, several merchants consulted explained that, although the territory is very large, hunting areas usually have impacts on crops and on the surrounding lands: the “peripheries” of the city.
It so happens that this week the Government of Castilla-La Mancha approved the favorable report to transform the installation of a welding plant in the municipality of Mira into a “priority project”. It will use an innovative method of welding metals through the connection of different metals and will have a quarry for the extraction, pulverization and crushing of dolomite stone, whose main destination is construction and a concrete prefabrication plant.
The Minister of Development, Nacho Hernando, stressed that this new factory will involve an investment of just over ten million euros and the creation of 44 jobs.
