THREE years after a devastating toxic chemical spill, birds in southern
Spain’s Doñana National Park are showing genetic damage that could last
for generations.
The park, near Seville in Andalusia, is an important stopover for some 6
million migrating birds. Doñana was declared a World Heritage Site in
1994.
On the night of 24 April 1998, the dam of a tailings lagoon of the
Aznalcóllar pyrite mine near Seville burst. According to the World Wide
Fund for Nature, nearly 2 million tonnes of tailings and 5.5 million cubic
metres of acidic water laced with heavy metals flooded…
