Mar Menor: an announced and provoked ecocide

Life is threatened in Europe's largest salt lagoon. The production model leads to disaster.

We must demand the application of drastic emergency measures. And organize to achieve a strategic exit, that overcomes the contradictions of the exploiting and predatory capitalist system.

Death on the shores

From the 15 August began a fateful episode: the appearance of a large number of dead fish and crustaceans. Question that, after a few days, would be confirmed with the coastal harvesting of fifteen tons of fish, crustaceans and algae by staff of the Cartagena city council and, especially, of fishermen in the area.

Environmental collapse is directly related to intensive agriculture that takes place in the field of Cartagena. At first the regional government blamed the high temperatures for this natural catastrophe. But this version was quickly disproved, The Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) confirmed that the episode has to do with anoxia,  whose main responsible would be the more than 8.000 It has illegal irrigation systems that dump their waste in the lagoon.

What is anoxia?

The anoxia is the lack of oxygen in the water, causing the death of fish and crustaceans. It occurs when a large amount of nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) from the fertilization of the fields enter the lagoon through the boulevards, after the rains. These nutrients feed the algae on the surface (phytoplankton) and these reproducing they generate the famous green soup that prevents the entry of light to the bottom of the sea. This prevents the algae at the bottom from photosynthesizing and feeding oxygen into the water.. In this way, fish and other species flee from the bottom looking for oxygen on the surface and are dragged to the shores.. It is an announced and provoked ecocide.

Pollution from corporate profit

One of the largest orchards in Europe is located in a terrain as arid as that of Murcia due to the change of the dry farming system (typical of the weather) for the irrigation. To grow an iceberg lettuce in the middle of the desert, an enormous amount of water and fertilizers are needed.. This change did not take place gradually due to the "Free laws of the market", but by political decisions that radically modified the cultivation model. In 1997 the subdivision was modified and the terrace system that retained water was eliminated. In 2011 the remaining terraces were replaced, planting began on a slope and cultivation began in fields where previously there was afforestation.

More and more multinational companies are renting fields to sow, with a direct impact on the environmental disaster. It is estimated that between 2012 Y 2016, only four of the most important companies dumped into the waters of the Mar Menor some 1.407 olympic nitrate brine pools. They are destroying a unique ecosystem and on the verge of causing irreversible damage. Many organizations defending the environment also point to the uncontrolled urbanization of the coast as another cause of the disaster.

It is the capitalist model

This has to do with the plans of the European Union and the role that it enforces Spain in the division of tasks: a tourist country "Vacation" and supplier of vegetables such as "Garden of Europe". Big industry, technology and environmental considerations, left for the northern powers. It is also necessary to point out the local accomplice actions since, parties like the PP and the PSOE did nothing to prevent the catastrophe. The problem is not seasonal or partial, in the Mar Menor there is an announced and provoked ecocide. The capitalist production model leads to environmental and social disaster, to the degradation of nature and society. The project of extend the slopes of El Prat in Catalonia, is another example of it.

Emergency measures and background exit

The first thing is to support those who mobilize, how they did it thousands of people in a symbolic embrace to the Mar Menor to stop ecocide. It is necessary to end intensive agriculture. Punish and prohibit the activity they have illegal irrigation pollutants. Revegetate areas that were deforested for planting. The state must guarantee all jobs in decent conditions. And it is necessary to address the debate on an agrarian reform, to attack the serious problem of large land holders, who are a privileged minority, exploiters and speculators.

The immediate thing is to execute an emergency plan in the way of substantive measures. Only with mobilization and organization can capitalist contradictions be overcome and aim for a different system, socialist, without exploitation of man by man, with sustainable agriculture, according to the weather, and with social equality.

Santiago Quintela