page_title: Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas Natural Park
section_title: Threat
hierarchical_section_title: Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas Natural Park / Threat
context_page_description: Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas Natural Park is a natural park in the eastern and northeastern part of the province of Jaén, Spain, established in 1986. With an area of 2,099.2 square kilometres, it is the largest protected area in Spain and the second largest in Europe. It was declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 1983 and also a Special Protection Area for migratory birds in 1988.
context_section_description: The chief threats to the park, as much for flora as for fauna, are the recurring forest fires, which have become more frequent and have had disastrous effects for some portions of the park. Development and human activity continue to be a grave threat, requiring a proportional increase in vigilance and firefighting, as the fire risk continues to rise:
  800 hectares (2,000 acres) burned in La Vacarizuela at the beginning of the 1990s, as did roughly 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) at Torre del Vinagre in 1986.
  In 2001, by the Puerto de las Palomas some 800 hectares (2,000 acres) were burned intentionally, but as of 2009 there has been no systematic replanting.
  In summer 2005 in the Sierra de las Villas and the west side of the Tranco over 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) burned after an electrical storm en the middle of a record heat wave; right in the heart of the park, this was the most massive and devastating disaster in the park's history.
  A particular hazard is over-exploitation for tourism, especially at well-known locations such as the village of Arroyo Frío, where tourism has vastly increased with no changes to the infrastructure. The sewage treatment plant at Arroyo Frío intended for about 400 people is saturated every weekend, when ten times that number of visitors arrive, and inadequately treated fecal matter makes its way into the Guadalquivir, to the detriment of fauna and flora.
  There have been epidemics, such as the scabies that decimated the population of Spanish ibex in the 1990s, or the local Austropotamobius pallipes crayfish that became virtually extinct due to a fungus that spread after the introduction of North American crayfish.
  Equally, plant species have suffered epidemics that have damaged the health of extensive forest areas, such as the pine processionary (Thaumetopoea pityocampa), a moth that does major damage to conifers.
  Other lesser problems are illegal hunting and logging, animals killed on the highways that pass through the park, and reduction and fragmentation of habitats.
  Climate change from global warming has already caused irregularities in the level of precipitation in Cazorla, which endangers the native plants and, by extension, the ecosystem.
caption: View after the fire of summer 2005
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