CEPSA: CEPSA Celebrates The 20th Anniversary Of The Restoration Of La Laguna Primera De Palos

In 2001, the company became a pioneer in the sector by voluntarily restoring wilderness in Spain, taking charge of the ecological restoration and landscape cleanup. Two decades later, Fundación Cepsa continues to protect this area and promote its natural resources.
The wetland located next to the company’s facilities in Palos de la Frontera, Huelva, exemplifies how business activity and care for the environment can coexist.
Its restoration spearheaded an improvement in biodiversity and led to the area’s recognition as a Wetland of International Importance (Ramsar), Natural Space, and Site of Community Importance.
Throughout this period, Cepsa has made constant investments to protect this natural space and has encouraged more than 90,000 people to visit the area through different environmental awareness programs.
Cepsa celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the restoration of La Laguna Primera de Palos, a milestone in sustainability in Spain. This project became the first to be led voluntarily by an energy company in Spain with the objective of restoring a space that had been degraded by human action. Located next to Cepsa facilities in Palos de la Frontera (Huelva), these twenty years of coexistence demonstrate how a sustainable balance between industrial development and nature conservation is possible.

In 2001, Cepsa began working alongside the Regional Government of Andalusia to restore the landscape to its original condition and committed itself to its future conservation. Likewise, over the past two decades, the company and its foundation have led numerous research projects, maintenance projects, and programs to promote public use and raise environmental awareness in line with Sustainable Development Goals 14 (life below water) and 15 (life on land).

This area is part of the Lagunas de Palos y Las Madres Natural Preserve and has a great wealth of flora and fauna. In addition to mammals, insects, reptiles, and amphibians, it is an important refuge for endangered species: each year it is visited by more than 150 species of birds, of which 61 are threatened.


In addition to fostering biodiversity, the restoration spearheaded by Cepsa and the Junta de Andalucía have led the space to be recognized as a Wetland of International Importance (Ramsar), Natural Space, and Site of Community Importance, and it has been added to the Natura 2000 Network, giving this space visibility not only at regional level, but also at the national and international level.


This year, apart from celebrating the 20th anniversary of the restoration’s completion in June, an academic conference will be held in autumn. It will feature institutional, political, university, and environmental figures, as well as others from sectors such as tourism and agriculture.

The remediation, conservation and awareness project that Fundación Cepsa is currently carrying out to preserve the biodiversity of this area is part of the company’s ESG strategy and its commitment to the environment and the 2030 Agenda.




A comprehensive restoration project


The restoration project proposed by Cepsa in 2001 was not intended to simply clean up the land, but rather to address the situation from a triple perspective that would safeguard the future conservation of the space through ecological recovery, landscape restoration, and environmental awareness.


As part of the ecological restoration, priority was given to shallow flooded areas, which had been significantly reduced in prior decades despite being essential for the reproduction of numerous waterfowl. In parallel, Cepsa also worked to recover the coastal forest, which plays a fundamental role in breeding and refuge for native fauna, as well as in limiting erosion and siltation of the lagoon. To make the restoration successful, up to 98 native species were used, many of which could no longer be found in the area. In addition, this whole process helped reintroduce and conserve 17 endangered flora species that had been growing in nurseries in the preceding years.




The project also guaranteed an improvement to landscape quality, especially due to the geographical location of the lagoon, which is found completely immersed in an area with increasing human activity. To achieve this, the company modified the topography and created meticulous vegetation screens that isolate the enclave from the surrounding infrastructure, favoring privacy and tranquility for the species that inhabit it and also for visitors.


Finally, one of Cepsa’s main goals was for this restoration to serve as a place to raise environmental awareness. Thus, after creating a botanical pathway and installing several observatories for bird watching using traditional architecture, as well as interpretive signage among other measures, the company and its foundation have prompted more than 90,000 people to visit as part of different programs.