Towards an environmental assessment model of palaeontological and archaeological heritage in the Autonomous Valencian Community without comparative torts

Abstract

The deficient management of the paleontological heritage through the environmental impact assessment procedures from the Valencian public administrations, linked mainly to the lack of competent technical means in the matter, results in an almost abandonment of it. On the contrary, the archaeological heritage has a series of perfectly structured tools that allow any possible impact on it regarding projects and actions subject to environmental impact assessment that can be detected and corrected. The damage that this situation creates results in the abandonment and almost absolute lack of protection of the palaeontological heritage in the Valencian Community. Despite how much has been written defending the location of paleontological heritage in the administrative field of Natural Heritage, the legal reality in the whole of the Spanish state is another, being based on its inclusion in the procedures together with the cultural heritage. This work defends the incorporation of a series of small legislative changes that make possible to equate the management of the palaeontological heritage with that of the archaeological one in the Valencian Community, thus avoiding the comparative torts that currently occur.