HUELVA NATURE | Other Nature Reserves and Protected Areas

Huelva Nature: Other Parks

Nature Parks, Nature Reservas & Nature Tours in Huelva, Costa de La Luz

Huelva Nature Map

Amongst the Nature Reserves there are – apart from that of the El Burro and La Isla de Enmedio Salt Marshes – that of Puerto Moral, a 125-hectare site in Aroche which is notable for being the breeding-place, wintering-place and migratory stopping-off place of many protected birds such as black vultures, golden eagles and black storks; and that of El Portil Lagoon, fifteen hectares of water with a very low salt content next to the sea in the coastal development of the same name belonging to Punta Umbría.
The lagoon formed when the shifting sands and the tides prevented two streams from flowing into the sea. Its importance lies in the fact that it is one of the lagoons with the highest number of aquatic plants in the whole of Andalusia (bulrushes, rushes, alkali bulrushes, stone pines, rockrose, Montpellier cistus, broom, savin juniper trees, juniper trees, Portuguese thyme...).

Playa de Castilla

Amongst its species of fauna stand out diverse amphibians such as the sharp-ribbed newt, the western spadefoot toad, and the Iberian midwife toad; reptiles such as the Spanish pond turtle, the common chameleon, the Montpellier snake and the ladder snake; and birds such as pochards, ferruginous ducks, coots, common cormorants, grebes, little ringed plovers, spatulas, glossy ibises and marsh harriers.

The two Green Belt Parks are La Norieta, a littoral pine forest in the municipal district of Punta Umbría; and that of El Saltillo and Lomero Llano, with stone pine trees, holm oaks and cork oaks, in Valverde del Camino. The Natural Monuments are the Acantilado del Asperillo (fossilized shifting dunes that make up the sand-cliff of El Asperillo, on Castilla Beach, between Mazagón and Doñana); El Acebuche del Espinillo (a wild olive tree over one hundred years old, with a girth of over 6 metres and a height of twelve metres, situated in Zalamea la real); Los Acebuches de El Rocío (the wild olive trees lining the streets of the small Almontese village); La Encina de la Dehesa de San Francisco (a holm oak tree over one hundred years old in Santa Olalla del Cala); and El Pino Centenario del Parador de Mazagón (a pine tree dating from 1730, when the Doñana region was reforested, growing next to the ‘Parador’, or high-class state-run tourist hotel, from which it gets its name).

El Rocío

Other important landscapes, although as yet lacking a form of protection, are the Cartaya Pine Forests; the Pine Forests and Salt Marshes of Hinojos; La Balastrera (lagoons adjoining the River Tinto, in Niebla); and the Andévalo Occidental (Western Andévalo).

Another important natural feature is the River Guadiana – a boundary of water that marks the frontier with Portugal in its final stretch until it flows into the Atlantic. It's navigable and its waters and banks harbour a great wealth of flora and fauna. It has the best-preserved mouth of any large river in Spain.

Another place of great interest for nature loves is the José Celestino Mutis Botanical Gardens in La Rábida, where exquisite examples of plant life from all over the world grow. Besides all this there are the green lanes – amongst them the ‘Vía Verde del litoral’ (Coastal Green Lane), 42 kilometres of the former trackbed of the railway line which ran between Huelva and Ayamonte and which goes through Gibraleón, Cartaya, Lepe, La Redondela and Isla Cristina; the ‘Vía Verde de los Molinos de Agua’, which goes from San Juan del Puerto to Valverde del Camino along the trackbed of the former mine railway for 36 kilometres; and the cycle track which runs between Huelva and Punta Umbría, crossing areas such as the Odiel Estuary Salt Marshes, La Norieta and Los Enebrales.