Tablas de Daimiel National Park

Tablas de Daimiel National Park, Spain

A low-angle view of the wooden footbridge crossing the reed beds of Tablas de Daimiel National Park at sunrise.

Tablas de Daimiel National Park is a floodplain wetland on the arid La Mancha plain, where two rivers still spread into reed beds.

The place

Tablas de Daimiel National Park (Parque Nacional de las Tablas de Daimiel) is a shallow wetland on the La Mancha plain in Ciudad Real province. The country around it is largely arid farmland, which is why the water that gathers here matters so much. The Guadiana and the Cigüela meet on this flat ground and spill into the shallow flood sheets called tablas: reed beds, mud islands and lagoons that come and go with the water. The Guadiana's flow is fresh, the Cigüela's is brackish, and groundwater seeps into the same basin. That mix is the habitat.

The park takes in ground belonging to Daimiel and Villarrubia de los Ojos, and protection is being extended into neighbouring dry farmland so the marsh can be managed together with the fields around it. The wetland covers some 3,000 hectares. Visitors cross it on wooden footbridges, with hides set for waterbirds. How much open water is present depends on rain and on the aquifer under the plain, which has been heavily pumped for irrigation. Declared a national park in 1973, the site is also a Ramsar wetland and a Special Protection Area for birds, and it sits at the centre of the Mancha Húmeda Biosphere Reserve. The official website (http://reddeparquesnacionales.mma.es/parques/daimiel/index.htm) is the check for water levels, open trails and access rules, because a dry year and a wet year do not look like the same place.

Its story

Tablas de Daimiel National Park was a hunting ground for centuries before anyone called it a park. Don Juan Manuel, in the Libro de la caza of 1325, already treated the river banks as falconry country. Fish and mill wheels depended on the same water. Philip II's Topographic Relations of 1575, a survey of the kingdom, told local officials to keep the tablas in good care. What protected the marsh, for a long time, was the shooting rather than a love of reeds.

Drainage pressure arrived later. From the 1950s the government pushed land reclamation across La Mancha so that wetland could become farmland. Sporting use did not stop: Franco came for the duck, and in 1966 the tablas were designated a National Hunting Reserve. In 1963 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature started the MAR Project, which compiled a priority list of marshes and pressed for habitat protection rather than species-only rules. That list helped pave the way for the Ramsar convention. National-park status followed in 1973, after drainage schemes had already bitten into the floodplain.

The lasting threat has been the aquifer. The store known as aquifer 23 has failed to recover under pumping driven by the Badajoz irrigation plan, begun in 1952, and by cereal growers with more political weight than the marsh. Yearly allocations to water users, roughly 590 million cubic metres, run close to double the renewable supply, roughly 320 million cubic metres. In 1995, with a possible European Union penalty in prospect, the environment ministry put forward a transfer from the Tagus to the upper Guadiana and the Mancha Húmeda, intended for towns and protected wetlands rather than for crops. The plan was poorly received, and the floodplain's recovery has remained incomplete.

What to see

Culture

Tablas de Daimiel National Park belongs to a hunting and farming district, not only to a birdwatching map. For centuries the tablas mattered because falcons and guns found ducks here, and because mills and nets used the same water. That past is recent as well as medieval: the marsh was a National Hunting Reserve in 1966 and a national park only from 1973, while the plain around Daimiel and Villarrubia de los Ojos is still cereal country. People in those towns live beside the wetland, so disputes about wells and irrigation are disputes about neighbours' fields.

Days out are quiet and local. Footbridges and the hides on the Laguna Permanente trail reward people who keep still; a loud group sees less. Daimiel's Plaza de España, late lunches, and weekends at the picnic ground are the ordinary Castilian frame around the reserve. Guided four-wheel-drive visits leave from the town's bus and railway station and come back there.

Stay on the wooden footbridges, keep quiet at the hides, and leave the waterfowl undisturbed; the wetland is a refuge, not ground for off-path exploring or feeding birds.

What to wear

Tablas de Daimiel National Park has no dress of its own; clothing follows Daimiel, Villarrubia de los Ojos and the rest of rural La Mancha. At fairs and processions people still bring out festive Castilian clothes: women in full skirts, aprons and shawls, sometimes a lace mantilla for a procession, and men in dark wool trousers, a sash and a shirt, with a hat for the sun on the plain. Linen and wool were the working textiles, made for dust and field labour rather than for reed beds. Those clothes belong to feast days.

Weekdays look like any inland Spanish town. Jeans, trainers, light jackets and colours that cope with strong sun are what people wear to the plaza and on the drive to the park. Boots, caps and quilted waistcoats are as common at the edge of Daimiel as formal costume.

Visitors should dress for an exposed arid plain and for timber walkways. A hat, sunscreen and a light layer beat smart clothes, and long sleeves help against sun near the reeds. Shoes with a grip are better than sandals when the bridges are wet. In town, ordinary daywear is enough for the Plaza de España.

What to eat

Plan it

Best time. Tablas de Daimiel National Park lies on an arid plain, and the tablas depend on an aquifer that irrigation has often drawn down, so the best time is any season when http://reddeparquesnacionales.mma.es/parques/daimiel/index.htm shows water in the lagoons and the footbridges open. Spring and autumn spare you the strong sun on the exposed walks; high summer on La Mancha is hard light for a shadeless marsh.

How long. 1–2

Getting there. Taxis run from Daimiel's bus and railway stations to Tablas de Daimiel National Park. Guided four-wheel-drive visits also leave from those stations and return to town. By car the last leg is the road out from Daimiel, which should be confirmed at http://reddeparquesnacionales.mma.es/parques/daimiel/index.htm. Rooms are in Daimiel, Almagro, Manzanares and Ciudad Real, not in the wetland itself.

Budget. low

Tips

Etiquette

Nearby

Sources