The semi-natural wetlands promoted by MITECO in the Mar Menor area already have a favorable environmental declaration.

The General Directorate of Environmental Assessment and Quality of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has issued an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the group of semi-natural wetlands in the Green Belt, included in the Framework of Priority Actions to Recover the Mar Menor (MAPMM), designed to retain and eliminate nutrients before they reach the lagoon.

The objectives of this action, whose EIA is favorable and which will take legal effect upon publication in the Official State Gazette (BOE), are to eliminate direct impacts and seek a buffer or impact-absorbing effect on the Mar Menor, as well as the naturalization of the lagoon's immediate surroundings.

The creation of these wetlands, one of the infrastructures included in the MAPMM Green Belt, endowed with €52 million, will contribute to maximizing the ecological potential of the areas surrounding the Mar Menor, with the aim of improving water quality by reducing nutrients and suspended solids.

They will also complement the measures planned by the Segura Hydrographic Confederation (CHS) to reduce flood risk during the periods of torrential rain that are common in this area.

Furthermore, wetlands will enhance biodiversity, contributing to the physical and ecological connectivity of continental and coastal ecosystems and increasing the quality and diversity of species and habitat types. They will also contribute to improving landscape quality by addressing an environment that is currently highly degraded.

This favorable environmental declaration constitutes a very significant step in the Green Belt process, as it guarantees environmental and legal security and highlights the efforts of MITECO in the face of the complexity of this environmental process, the broad participation, and the innovative nature of this type of project.

Once the EIA is obtained, MITECO will be able to complete the land availability process, draft each of the executive projects, and subsequently process the bidding process and award the works for the semi-natural wetlands.

With this EIA, two of the three types of infrastructure planned for the Green Belt have now received environmental approval, in addition to these semi-natural wetlands and the renaturalization areas. The environmental processing of the green filters is still pending.

The Green Belt is included in Line 2 of the MAPMM (Restoration and Environmental Improvement in the Mar Menor Basin. Nature-Based Solutions), the line with the largest planned investment. Its main objective is to act at the source to eliminate direct impacts and achieve a buffer or absorption effect on the impacts and pollution load of the waters before they reach the lagoon, as well as the naturalization of the catchment area.

These initiatives, declared of general interest by the Spanish Government in November 2021 to address matters falling under the jurisdiction of another administration, are among those selected by MITECO to be funded through the European Union's Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan.

The semi-natural wetland projects located in the basin that flows into the Mar Menor are fully consistent with the Strategic Wetlands Plan to 2030, approved by the Sectoral Conference on the Environment on November 23, 2022, as a framework for the actions needed to halt and reverse the loss and degradation of our wetlands in Spain and to improve their ecosystem services.

The philosophy and approach to interventions for the Mar Menor Green Belt and the rest of the MAPMM also align with the recently approved EU Nature Restoration Law, having become an inspiring plan for the objectives of this EU legislation.