The Congress of Deputies has approved initiating the processing of a law so that the Mar Menor and its entire basin have legal personality, with which it will be the first ecosystem in Europe with its own rights, as if it were a person or a company.
All the groups, except Vox, have said yes to turning the popular legislative initiative (ILP) endorsed by more than 600,000 signatures into a bill and thus begin its parliamentary process.
The initiative defends a "radical change" in the paradigm applied until now, so that nature, in this case the Mar Menor, goes from being treated as "an object at the service of humanity" to being "a subject of rights" , “from being a slave to being a citizen”, explains the professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Murcia Teresa Vicente,
The bill will be processed by urgent means to speed up its final approval, which could be ready in the summer.
Shortening the deadlines is vital for an ecosystem in a critical state in which, in addition to the continuous discharges of nitrates through the El Albujón and Miranda boulevards, there have been added those of phosphates caused by the runoff from the rains that have fallen on the area in recent weeks and that have generated "the perfect breeding ground" for a new episode of anoxia (lack of oxygen) to occur.
Massive fish kills like those recorded in October 2019 and August 2021 could be repeated, warns Pedro Macanás, a legal expert in the environment and a researcher, together with Teresa Vicente, from the Chair of Human Rights and Nature. from the University of Murcia.
One before and one after
Both agree that with this future law, nature will no longer be an object to be exploited, but rather a subject that is part of life.
It will also mean a before and after in the way of defending it, because by becoming a subject of law, any citizen will be able to report to the contentious-administrative courts―without having to go to criminal law―aggressions such as, for example, a urban development or a new agricultural exploitation, which violates a right of the Mar Menor and puts it in danger.
"When the law is in force, you can go to court and request a stoppage as a precautionary measure without having to be directly affected," says Eduardo Salazar, an environmental lawyer.
Right now, only NGOs can carry out this popular action and "it's about opening it up to the public," he adds.
It is a path that complements all the environmental legislation that already exists, but in this case, as in other ecosystems, “it has not worked”, so it is essential to “seek alternatives” like this one, which will lead to a “total legal change” in the long term. ”, points out Vincent.
He gives the example of minors for whom, after recognizing their rights, the courts and judicial processes have been adapted, the way to serve them, specialized courts and resources have been created especially oriented to this population.
The same case as with women victims of sexist violence.
“Whenever someone who did not have rights has acquired them, there has had to be a big change, and this time it will happen the same, it will be a revolution that will limit the current model of economic development that is destroying the planet.
The vital citizen impulse
Not in vain, she has already presented the content of the ILP in several countries, and on April 20 she will do so at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where she has been invited to explain it.
She will be accompanied by Mario Cervera, the mayor of the municipality of Los Alcázares, a town of some 16,000 inhabitants on the shores of the largest salt lagoon in Europe - a small salty sea with an area of 170 square kilometers and very little depth - who supported this project From the beginning.
The petition was submitted to the Regional Assembly of Murcia, but the regional parliament considered that it was not the competent body to open that debate, which gave rise to launching a collection of signatures, made difficult by the pandemic, which ended on the 27th of January 2022 with the delivery in Congress of more than 615.
For Cervera, the time that could have been gained by processing this law directly in the regional Chamber has been compensated because the ILP has led to the creation of a broad social movement "united and excited."
In addition, the possibility of raising the initiative to a national and even international level has been opened, so the fight to recover the Mar Menor does not end with the legal process, but "tomorrow we must continue fighting and that will be done".
a titanic effort
The citizen movement has been key in this chapter in the defense of the coastal lagoon and the broad mobilization for the collection of signatures has been maintained with rallies, demonstrations and all kinds of initiatives.
Fifty representatives of citizen platforms have traveled to Madrid this Tuesday to follow the debate live.
Isabel Rubio, from the coordination group of the platform Pact for the Mar Menor, wanted to be a day like this in Congress and attest to "a very important step in the evolution of humanity", that of "giving rights to ecosystems" .
The law, she insists, will give citizens the possibility of denouncing "any aggression suffered by the ecosystem",
From the guest gallery they have listened to the arguments of the political groups.
The socialist Juan Luis Soto Burillo has recalled that he proposes "a change in the way of thinking and acting, a peaceful coexistence of equals between human beings and nature", in addition to criticizing the actions of the PP Government in Murcia.
An argument rejected by the Vox representative, Luis Gestoso de Miguel, who has branded the project "delusional" that seeks to "criminalize farmers", whom he considers the least guilty of the situation in the Mar Menor.
His intervention has been criticized by representatives of other political groups, such as Juan Ignacio López-Bas, from Ciudadanos, who has reminded him that this initiative seeks not to leave the defense of the lagoon alone in the hands of the Administration, offering tools to the citizens.
From Podemos, the deputy Javier Sánchez has also been very critical of Vox, whom he has accused of being "agribusiness stewards" and has lamented the personal attacks that the extreme right is making against Teresa Vicente.
For the regional coordinator of the party in Murcia, the social movement generated is the result "of years of degradation of the Mar Menor in the face of politicians who did not listen to the alarms launched by neighborhood groups and environmentalists."
Juan Luis Pedreño, of the PP, has indicated that some groups will use the initiative as a "political instrument at the service of their ideologies", as "we have just verified in the interventions of the socialist group and Vox".
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