**2. The Maritime-Terrestrial Galician Atlantic Islands National Park**

This National Park was declared under Spanish Law 15/2002. Located on the Atlantic coast of Galician region (NW Spain), PNG is made up of four archipelagos (Cíes, Ons, Sálvora, and Cortegada) and the marine waters that surround them (**Figure 1**). PNG comprises a total area of 8480 ha (**Table 1**), corresponding the

**Figure 1.** *Location map of PNG.*


**Table 1.**

*Marine and terrestrial area are occupied by the archipelagos of the National Park.*

86% to marine waters. According to Law 15/2002, the biggest archipelago in the National Park is Cíes, with 3091 ha, of which 433 ha are terrestrial and 2658 ha are marine waters. Ons archipelago occupies 2641 ha, with 470 ha of terrestrial land (the largest terrestrial archipelago) and 2171 ha of marine waters. Sálvora Archipelago holds 2309 ha of marine waters and 248 ha of terrestrial area. Cortegada Archipelago is the smallest of the four, assuming a total area of 191 ha in the National Park, of which 43.8 ha are terrestrial lands.

Each archipelago is located in four different municipalities that are spread in two Galician provinces (**Figure 1**). Archipelagos located in Pontevedra province are Cíes (belonging to Vigo municipality), Ons (belonging to Bueu municipality), and Cortegada (belonging to Vilanova de Arousa municipality). In A Coruña province, the resting archipelago of PNG is Sálvora (belonging to Ribeira municipality). According to Laws 15/2002 and 42/2007, the whole four municipalities configure the socioeconomic influence area of PNG (**Figure 2**).

The environmental values of this territory (unique in Galicia with the status of a National Park) in the area of the Atlantic coast led to the proposal for the declaration in 1975 of the Cíes Islands as a "Natural Area" (one of the existing categories according to the legislation in force at that time), although they would finally be declared at the beginning of the 1980s under other of the existing categories, as Natural Park (Royal Decree 2497/1980), and later in 1988 as Special Protection Area for Birds (SPA) under Directive 79/409/EEC, a category that will also be given to Ons Islands in 1990.

Given the need to expand the protection scope of these first preventive approaches through a new National Park, in order to harmonize economic activities and the environment conservation, a first management plan was drafted and approved (Decree 274/1999) for Cíes, Ons, and Sálvora islands. Subsequently, it was assessed the opportunity and need to also integrate Cortegada islands, so its corresponding management plan was approved 3 years after (Decree 88/2002). So finally, the Maritime-Terrestrial Galician Atlantic Islands National Park was approved by Spanish Law 15/2002, the first and only Galician National Park.

In parallel to the National Park designation, after the approval of the Directive 92/43/EEC, the procedure for the designation of Galician Natura 2000 Network had started in 1999 with the first drafts and finished with the designation of the definitive Sites of Community Importance (SCI) in 2004. These finally were transformed to Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) in 2014, through the appropriate planning and management instrument (approved by regional Decree 37/2014) that guarantees the maintenance or, where appropriate, the reestablishment, of a favorable conservation status of natural habitats and species interesting for conservation, following the foreseen procedure by Directive 92/43/EEC. At the end of this process, Cíes, Ons, and Sálvora islands were included in three different SACs (**Figure 2**), which are managed by the autonomous region of Galicia.

Considering the high importance of the marine biodiversity of the National Park, this has two additional protection categories by international instruments. The first one was conferred in 2008, as it was integrated in OSPAR network, which is focused

*Galician Atlantic Islands National Park: Challenges for the Conservation and Management… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101844*

**Figure 2.** *Overlapping of the different categories of natural protected areas in the territorial scope of PNG.*

on the protection and conservation of marine ecosystems and diversity of North-East Atlantic, becoming the first Spanish protected area under OSPAR Convention. Subsequently, the Spanish Government declared a series of SPAs in Spanish marine waters in 2014, including in one of them the Cíes, Ons, and Sálvora archipelagos of the PNG (**Figure 2**), and that was also integrated in OSPAR network. The second additional protection category by international instruments is very recent, as in May 2021 the National Park has definitely been included in the List of wetlands of international importance, as defined by the Ramsar Convention (**Figure 2**).

So Maritime-Terrestrial Galician Atlantic Islands National Park is a very important protected area into the Galician territory, and also at a Spanish level. It holds several types of protected areas (**Figure 2**), from a national (National Park), regional (Protected Wetland), European (SAC, SPA), and international (OSPAR, Ramsar) point of view, which are overlapped and establish huge synergies between them. The biodiversity sheltered by the National Park is very important, both in terms of the protected harbored habitats and species habitats that are present.

According to the available data [5], the National Park houses a total of 34 habitat types considered of community interest in Annex I of Directive 92/43/EEC, of which eight habitats are classified as priority conservation: Coastal lagoons (1150\*), Fixed coastal dunes with herbaceous vegetation-grey dunes (2130\*), Atlantic decalcified fixed dunes (2150\*), Temperate Atlantic wet heaths with *Erica ciliaris* and *Erica tetralix* (4020\*); Arborescent matorral with *Laurus nobilis* (5230\*), Pseudosteppe with grasses and annuals of the *Thero-Brachypodietea* (6220\*), Calcareous fens with *Cladium mariscus* and species of the *Caricion davallianae* (7210\*), Alluvial forests with *Alnus glutinosa* and *Fraxinus excelsior* (91E0\*). The groups of habitats of community interest that register the highest number of types are those related to coastal environments and halophilic vegetation, being inventoried up to 11 different types of habitats, as well as dune systems, which register also a significant number of dune system habitats (seven types) ranging from embryonic mobile dunes to decalcified fixed dunes. Other well-represented habitat groups are natural and semi-natural grassland formations, rocky habitats and caves, temperate heaths and scrub, sclerophyllous scrubs and forests of temperate Europe.

The species that are considered as protected are those interesting for conservation as they are included in Annexes II and IV of the Directive 92/43/EEC, in Annex I of Directive 2009/147/EC, together with those listed in the Catalogues of Threatened Species in Spain (Royal Decree 139/2011) and Galicia (Decree 88/2007). The National Park includes a total of 530 species protected under all these regulations (**Table 2**). Among these taxa, it is worth noting the presence of two species considered for priority conservation according to Directive 92/43/EEC: the flora species \**Omphalodes littoralis* subsp. *gallaecica* and the common sea turtle (\**Caretta caretta*). In addition, 15 species included in Annex II of Directive 92/43/ EEC and 16 in species included in its Annex IV, are also present in the National Park. Regarding the birds, 25 species are included in Annex I of Directive 2009/147/EC.


*[HD]: Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC); [P]: priority species; [II, IV, IV]: Annex where the species is included; [BD]: Birds Directive (2009/147/EC); [I]: Annex I; [SCTS]: Spanish Catalog of Threatened Species; [En]: Endangered; [Vu]: Vulnerable; [SP]: List of Wild Species under Special Protection; [GCTS]: Galician Catalog of Threatened Species; [E]: Endangered; [V]: Vulnerable.*

#### **Table 2.** *Protected species richness in PNG.*

The cataloged species include 3 species considered as Endangered by the Spanish Catalog of Threatened Species, and 11 species considered as Endangered by the Galician Catalog of Threatened Species.
