Ugly Park In Madrid – Could work!

Simon Hunter Editor at the English Magazine In-Madrid, made contact with me recently to ask if I would be interested in helping make an article for his magazine In-Madrid.

I didn’t need to think about it. I would take Simon to the Juan Carlos I Park, in Madrid. This park is near to IFEMA, on line 9 of the Metro, and located to the N.E of Central Madrid. It’s a terribly ugly site designed in 90’s by Jose Luis Esteban Penelas and Emilio Esteras Martín. The aim was to create something that was emblematic. Personally, I couldn’t imagine anything as far from nature as this, however it does fall into the category of a real park! It’s true that some leisure and recreational areas of use for us can indeed be found within it’s concrete hedges and pointless shallow canals.

I love parks, the kind with green grass that you don’t replant every year. You’d be hard pushed to find more than 10 species of bird here, parks are still for wildlife are they not? You get the feeling this one costs a fortune to maintain, and makes less of a contribution to nature than our humble family cottage garden back home.

Juan Carlos I, does have a small lake with some depth where fish can survive. I would take Simon here first because it’s a great place to catch, the lake is over populated with small hungry fish, it would be impossible not to catch!

Whilst on site we could also check other Spanish anglers and consider the poor treatment and mishandling of fish. Looking at the fish stock and those small carp caught, at least 70% of the fish are badly damaged due to foul treatment, hook pulling, lip pulling etc. It’s a great shame that no money is being invested and there is a lack of culture when it comes to fish care at this time in the park. Where is the education? Local clubs should be helping youngsters, educating them with fish care. I intend to mention this for sure in the article for In-Madrid, perhaps a global campaign will help activate people. I hope to review these points as well as other positive sides to our sport!