Salt Lakes (Santa Pola)
N-332, 03130 Alicante
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The Natural Park of the Salinas de Santa Pola with its 2,470 hectares is a clear example of coexistence between traditional uses and the conservation of the environment.
This space, together with the El Hondo Natural Park, formerly formed a large wetland area known as the Elche lagoon. The area includes salt mines, those of Braç del Port and Bonmatí, a series of freshwater ponds with a greater or lesser degree of salinity, an area of dunes and beaches and a small portion of farmland.
This diversity of environments gives rise to a great variety of plant formations and faunal groups, which are distributed according to the degree of salinity and the depth of the water sheet.
In Santa Pola there is a stable population of about 2,000 flamingos, but as occurs in other wetlands in Spain, some of the flamingos ( Phoenicopterus roseus ) that live in there do so temporarily, reaching concentrations of about 8,000 specimens in the breeding season, that is, in spring. In this season it is not uncommon to see pink flamingos flying in the Salinas de Santa Pola, as they move between different coastal wetlands.
Clot de Galvany Municipal Natural Park
Av. del Carabasí, 82, 03195 Port Marí, Alicante
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El Clot de Galvany is a protected natural space with the category of municipal natural area and a surface area of 366.31 has located in the rural areas of Los Arenales del Sol (district of Elche), Balsares (district of Elche) and Gran Alacant ( district of Santa Pola), in the province of Alicante (Spain).
This place is an enclave of great environmental value. In it you can distinguish different ecosystems, which contain a flora and fauna of great importance at the regional and even state level. Thus, we can highlight the presence of bird species such as the gray teal, the squirrel heron, the white-headed duck and the brown poodle.
Amphibians include the runner toad and the common frog, as well as a wide variety of reptiles. Likewise, this place stands out for the presence of diverse fauna communities dunes, salt marshes and marsh communities, highlighting endemisms such as Limonium furfuraceum, L. parvibracteatum and L. santapolense. El Clot de Galvany is also home to the best dune formation in the province of Alicante and one of the best in the Valencian Community, with a system of mobile, semi-fixed and fixed dunes, which in ancient times and since the 1960s were destroyed by the intense urban activity developed in the context of the strong growth in residential demand linked to the intense tourist activity in the coastal areas of Elche. It was declared a Municipal Natural Area by agreement of the Council of the Valencian Government on January 21, 2005. It is also included in the Catalog of Wetlands, approved by resolution of September 10, 2002 of the Council of the Generalitat.
Natural Park of La Mata-Torrevieja
Ctra. Nacional, s/n, 03188 Torrevieja, Alicante - (0034) 965 72 16 50
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A lovely spot to visit for a long walk, perhaps with the dog, and have a picnic under the trees. The park has over 3,700 hectares with two salt lagoons, the blue lagoon of La Mata and the pink lagoon of Torrevieja, and several viewing points from where you can see the different species of birds. The two lagoons are separated from each other by an anticline called "El Chaparral". A channel joins both depressions that, in addition, are artificially connected with the sea through two other channels known as "Acequiones", thus forming a salt exploitation unit. Together with the neighboring natural parks of El Hondo and Las Salinas de Santa Pola, they form a triangle of wetlands of crucial importance for the development of the biological cycles of numerous species that use it both in their migrations and in their nesting or wintering.