Get permission to sail legally in a pyre throughout Spain costs at least one thousand eight hundred euros per person per year, get more than fifty different permissions, and anticipate it more than a year in advance.

This contrasts radically with the situation in the rest of the European Union where, in general, no permits are required to practice pyragüism in public waters and also with the provisions of the Water Act. A number of aggravating factors are identified:

• Extreme slowness of proceedings, more than several months
• Acute fragmentation of the competitive territory, which continues to occur, and which causes the above abusive rates
• Confusion between navigation permit and boat registration for the purpose of fees. Collapse of the registration system
• Disparity of requirements in each case, and significant lack of information available to the applicant
• Lack of knowledge of the reality of the problem within the federal sphere
• The case of active association between recreational piragüists

With regard to interactions with other users, they are mainly with recreational fishermen. According to the scientific and technical documentation available to date, they have to do more with the perception of the enjoyment of one of the groups of users involved (the fishermen) than with the actual effect on fish stocks, which is minimal.

However, it ends up in total prohibitions on navigation in large areas or in very large times (salmonid furity). The existence of two different competent administrations and the lack of fluid communication mechanisms between them and with users, further complicates the obtaining of regulations that make both activities compatible with the shared right, without preferences, to the use of the public hydraulic domain by ensuring its conservation and that of its resources.

The problems with the use of the HPH's passing servitude seem to be resolved after the emergence of Decree 9 / 2008, which extends the servitude to all the walkers (we understand that also to the pyragüists). Finally, the role of the Pyragüists, clubs and Federations in preventing the dispersion of invasive alien species in the aquatic environment is analysed.

For more information on:

Real Federación Española de Piragüismo

The legal problem of Recreative and Sports Piragüism in Spanish inland waters