The National Parks Autonomous Agency (OAPN) is an autonomous agency of the Spanish central government that manages the National Parks Network and the Spanish Biosphere Reserves Network, as well as mountains, farms and other patrimonial assets of its property. The agency was created on June 23, 1995 by the Agriculture Minister Luis María Atienza by merging two other agencies, the Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICONA) and the National Institute for Agrarian Reform and Development (IRYDA).
The OAPN is an agency of the Spanish Ecological Transition Department. The Minister, the Secretary of State for Environment and the Director-General for Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification act as President, First Vice President and Second Vice President of the agency, respectively, although the chief executive of the agency is the Director. The current director is Juan José Areces Maqueda, appointed on July 29, 2018.
Powers
The National Parks Autonomous Agency is responsible for:
The formulation of the national policy regarding national parks. The dissemination and promotion of the image, values, and conservation model of national parks abroad. The planning and management of the natural spaces of state competence. The management of the mountains, farms and other assets assigned or their ownership. The coordination and promotion of the Man and the Biosphere Programme of UNESCO, as well as the promotion, coordination and support of the Biosphere Reserve Network. The support to the Ecological Transition Department's policies regarding biodiversity, conservation and sustainable use of natural resources, conservation of fauna, flora, habitat and natural ecosystems in the terrestrial and marine environment. In this sense, it has the same responsibilities in the Department's policies on education, information, awareness, training and public participation on environmental issues through the National Center for Environmental Education (CENEAM). The provision to the public of information and documentation services specialized in protected areas, nature conservation, dissemination, communication and environmental education. The cooperation with public and private entities, both national (state, regional and local) and international, for the development of the previous functions.
History
The first National Parks Act was passed on December 8, 1916. This law was one of the first in Europe dedicated to the protection of nature and it consisted in just three articles. The law, defined the national parks as "those exceptionally picturesque, forested or rugged sites or places of the national territory, which the State consecrates, declaring them such, with the sole purpose of favoring their access through adequate means of communication, and respecting and to ensure that the natural beauty of its landscapes, the richness of its fauna and its flora and the geological and hydrological participles that they enclose are respected, thus avoiding with the greatest efficiency any act of destruction, deterioration or disfigurement by the hand of the man". The first two national parks to be created were the Covadonga Mountain National Park (current Picos de Europa National Park) and the Ordesa Valley National Park (currently named Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park).
From 1918 to 1954, the National Parks Network was integrated by those two parks. In 1954, two places of the Canary Islands were granted with the rank of national parks, the Teide National Park and the Caldera de Taburiente National Park. A year later, the Aiguas Tortas y Lago de San Mauricio National Park was created.
In 1957, a new Forestry Act was passed and it replaced the old Forestry Act of 1863 and also the National Parks Act of 1916. This new legislation also marks a substantial change in the legislative approach to environmental protection, according to which ecological factors begin to be more important when declaring new parks; in front of the merely historical and landscape. Years later, in 1969, Doñana is declared a National Park and, in 1973, the Tablas of Daimiel. A year later, a new national park is created in the Canary Islands, the Timanfaya National Park.