From saving a dying lagoon by securing a person’s legal rights to building birdhouses to attract bats, environmental activists in Spain are mobilizing to protect their local waterways from pollution and biodiversity loss.
Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon, Spain’s Mar Menor, is slowly being poisoned by pollution from intensive farming and livestock farming, old mines, and rampant tourism infrastructure and development. Yet the irony is that the lagoon is, on paper, protected by numerous environmental laws.
Teresa Vicente, a lawyer, professor and local activist, has been convinced for five years that the only way to properly protect the Mar Menor is to grant it legal personality status.
She led a historic campaign supported by thousands of protesters, which eventually led to her popular legislative proposal (a provision that allows citizens to propose a law to parliament) becoming law. In September 2022, the Spanish Senate enacted it. This is the first time in Europe that an ecosystem has been granted the right to the conservation of its species and habitats and protection from harmful activities.
“The smell of rotting vegetation has become stronger”
In the Spanish province of Murcia, we met Teresa and her colleague Eduardo Salazar Ortuño, an environmental lawyer, at the Mar Menor lagoon. As they took us to an area near the Rambla del Albujón, the smell of rotting vegetation intensified as we got closer to the lagoon’s shore. Just ahead of us was a large expanse of whitish water. Eduardo explained that the water had turned this color because all the underwater plant life had been killed.
Teresa grew up near the lagoon and it became almost unbearable for her to see what she had become.
“I feel like crying every time I come here. At the same time, I feel like fighting for her with all my strength, to give the Mar Menor back its rights,” she told Euronews.
“Everyone is Mar Menor, because we are nature”
She explains to us that the lagoon is now considered a legal entity.
“The Mar Menor is a living entity, a person. It is a subject that can defend itself. But in itself, in this case, it means that everyone is the Mar Menor, because we are nature.”
In April 2024, Teresa won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for her work, often described as the “Green Nobel.”
Eduardo said that three active legal cases were being processed, under the new legal status of the Mar Menor.
“The rights of the Mar Menor are [désormais] priority over the rights of the owners living around the Mar Menor. When we go to court, some rights take precedence over others. It is not an object that does not want to be polluted, but a person who does not want to be polluted.”
Companies fined for dumping brine into lagoon
Although the lagoon is still polluted, positive changes have taken place. Earlier this year, companies that dumped brine from desalination plants into the lagoon were fined more than two million euros, and the Spanish government has increased its budget to address the effects of the pollution.
Teresa’s campaign began after the ecological collapse of 2019, when fish, shellfish and underwater plant life were virtually wiped out due to severe eutrophication.
Eutrophication occurs when green algae grow out of control, fueled by excess nitrates from fertilizers. This blocks out light, preventing plants from growing and producing oxygen. In August 2021, five tons of dead fish washed ashore.
Eduardo Salazar Ortuño explains what an ecological collapse is: “ Imagine lots of fish coming here to the shore to get oxygen and breathe. And before this disaster, 80 percent of the flora disappeared! 80 percent!
Ramón Pagán, another environmentalist and president of a local residents’ association, said he feared it could happen again this year, as recent heavy rains have dumped large amounts of nitrates into the lagoon.
He took us to Los Nietos, a once-bustling town on the edge of the lagoon. Tourists no longer come, because the beach is brown and muddy, and the smell of rotting plants hangs in the air. Many houses are abandoned, and several restaurants have closed.
Bringing Bats Back to Blanca
Eighty kilometres to the northwest, the town of Blanca sits on the banks of the Segura River. Here, local environmentalists are taking a different approach to protecting their waterway: they want to encourage bats to return to live here.
Bats are important to ecosystems because they control insect populations, pollinate plants and disperse seeds. Bats used to live in caves along the riverside cliffs, but the population was decimated about 20 years ago when the cliffs collapsed, destroying the caves.
Neftalí Escribano, European ambassador for the climate pact, organized a workshop in June to make wooden bat boxes that will be hung in trees along rivers to attract bats to Blanca.
Using water consciously
Euronews and the European Commission are partnering to promote the European Water Wise campaign, #WaterWiseEU. Our series, Water Matters, and the EU campaign aim to raise awareness of the increasing pressure on Europe’s river systems and the need for sustainable water management. Water Matters will delve into a range of water-related issues, highlighting the importance of protecting nature and ecosystems that are an integral part of the water cycle. Through engaging content, Euronews and the European Commission hope to inspire individuals and communities to become #WaterWiseEU.
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