Bitter fruit: strawberry boom water plan raises fears for Spanish wetlands

Opponents say proposed amnesty for illegal tapping in Donana national park threatens disaster for one of Europe's green lungs

Juan Romero shakes his head as looks out across the lake at the wading spoonbills, the pipe-cleaner silhouettes of the flamingos and the glossy ibis that flash against the Andalucian sky.

This is an illusion," says the ecologist, a retired teacher. The birds are real enough, of course, and so too are the tufty-eared Iberian lynxes that will be sniffing out a breakfast of rabbit in the quieter, wilder reaches of the huge Donana national park in southern Spain.