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Spain gives Lagoon Mar Menor personal status

2022-09-21T19:33:14.914Z


It is a novelty in Europe: an ecosystem is given personal status. A local citizens' group campaigned to protect the Mar Menor Lagoon on Spain's southeast coast. Another country paved the way.


Enlarge image

The Spanish lagoon Mar Menor is affected by severe species extinction

Photo: ALBERTO DI LOLLI / imago images / El Mundo

Spain has given person status to a large saltwater lagoon suffering from massive marine extinctions.

The initiative for the corresponding new law for better protection of the endangered ecosystem comes from the population.

The Spanish Senate voted in favor of the legislative initiative, which was supported by 600,000 people.

The Mar Menor Lagoon on the south-east coast of Spain is the first ecosystem in Europe to be given human status.

A total of 1,600 square kilometers of the lagoon and the nearby Mediterranean coast are now legally represented by a group of administrators made up of local officials, local citizens and scientists working in the area.

The citizens' initiative that promoted the measure hopes to protect the lagoon from further deterioration.

For years, environmentalists and citizens have denounced die-offs in the lagoon due to fertilizer runoff from nearby farms.

"So that natural disasters like the ones that have happened, so that the fauna of the Mar Menor die off, do not recur, we are giving this ecosystem its own rights," Senator Maria Moreno said before the vote.

The law enshrines the lagoon's right "to exist and develop naturally as an ecosystem" and recognizes its right to protection, conservation and restoration.

In 2017, New Zealand passed landmark legislation granting personal status to the Whanganui River.

jso/AP

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-09-21

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