• Property for Sale
  • To Rent
  • Holidays
  • Directory
  • Articles
  • Jobs
    • € EUR
    • Professionals/Advertiser Login
    • Advertise your Property on thinkSPAIN
    • Sell your property with an estate agent
    • Add your Business to the Directory
    • Advertising with thinkSPAIN
    • List a job vacancy on thinkSPAIN
    • By Signing up you are agreeing with our Terms and Privacy Policy.

      Looking for the Professionals/Advertiser Login?
      or

      Don't have an account?  

      • Follow us:

By Signing up you are agreeing with our Terms and Privacy Policy.

Looking for the Professionals/Advertiser Login?
or

Don't have an account?  

Sign up

By Signing up you are agreeing with our Terms and Privacy Policy.
or

Already have a thinkSPAIN account?

Sign in/Register

By Signing up you are agreeing with our Terms and Privacy Policy.
or

Don't have an account?

Forgot your password?

thinkSPAIN Logo

Mar Menor now a 'legal person': How the public saved a heavenly sea

 

Mar Menor now a 'legal person': How the public saved a heavenly sea

ThinkSPAIN Team 23/09/2022

ONE of south-eastern Spain's most unusual and popular coastal enclaves is the first to be given 'legal personality' in history – meaning it automatically has 'rights' at law.

Aerial view of the Mar Menor, a mostly-inland sea and Europe's largest salt lake (photo: Wikimurcia)

Normally, humans and corporations or other organisations, profit- or non-profit-making, hold 'legal personality', which means they are responsible for their actions at law as an individual or collective, and that they have specific rights as well as duties – but a body of water in the public domain has never before been recognised in this way.

The aim is to ensure the Mar Menor enjoys the 'fundamental right' to conservation and protection, and its status has been approved by the Senate following a petition started two years ago that has gathered over 600,000 signatures.

Banco de Tabal beach in San Javier, one of at least five on La Manga that earned a blue flag for 2022. Water quality has to be excellent to gain or keep this kitemark, which proves that the Mar Menor's ‘oxygen crisis’ is episodic, not a continuous state (photo: Murcia regional tourism board)

Organisers of this petition filed what is known as a People's Legislative Initiative (ILP) calling for the Mar Menor to be granted legal rights and be considered an 'entity' at law.

 

Curious geography of Europe's largest salt lake

The Mar Menor, in the single-province region of Murcia, is generally thought of as a sea coast, but in practice, it is the largest salt lake in Europe.

It is land-bordered on three-and-a-half sides, so it is fed by the Mediterranean but almost entirely enclosed.

This narrow strip of inhabited land, known as La Manga, separates what is essentially a salt lake from the Mediterranean sea (photo by the public sector workers' and pensioners' protection association, AESFAS - Aesfas.org)

The thin strip or istmus that 'closes' the Mar Menor off from the Mediterranean is 21 kilometres (13 miles) long, but only between 100 metres (109.3 yards, or 328 feet) and 1.2 kilometres (three-quarters of a mile) wide.

Centuries ago, it was wider still – remains of Roman settlements have been found submerged either side.

It is often referred to as a miniature Baja California, except that its tip rejoins the land.

Close-up view of the El Galán area of La Manga. This picture gives a clear perspective of how unique its geography is - a beach within easy sight to the east and the west, one in front of you and one behind. At its narrowest, the La Manga strip is only 100 metres wide (photo: Enrique Freire/Flickr/Wikimedia Commons)

Known as La Manga del Mar Menor, the northern part of the strip belongs to the towns of San Javier, San Pedro del Pinatar, and Los Alcázares, and the southern part to Cartagena.

It extends from the San Pedro del Pinatar salt and sand flats in the north down to the volcanic Cabo de Palos bay and lighthouse in the south.

The Mar Menor's waters are warmer than the nearest open part of the Mediterranean, all year round, meaning it has long been a destination of choice for those seeking respite from joint and muscle pain.

The Mar Menor has a handful of tiny, uninhabited islands in the middle of it - one of them can be seen here, from a beach on La Manga (photo: Felipe Ortega/Flickr/Wikimedia Commons)

Unsurprisingly, this, coupled with the endless spa resorts and golf courses along the Murcia Region coast, means the Mar Menor area is hugely popular with tourists, with northern European expatriates, and as a holiday home or sunshine retirement hotspot.

 

When the sea can't breathe: Why the Mar Menor needs special protection

Long known as a holiday paradise, even – and especially, in fact – in winter, the Mar Menor has been under serious threat on occasion in the past three years, displaying the classic signs of what happens to a marine ecosystem if society in general does not respect its environment.

Pollution through industrial and agricultural leakage, nitrates, excess salt from desalination plants, motorboats, plastic waste and other phenomena toxic to the sea, together with over-fishing, all of which would take a long time to create a visible, negative impact in the huge expanses of the world's oceans, took their toll very quickly on this microcosm of them.

Posidonia Oceanica, also known as Mediterranean Tapeweed or Neptune Grass, forms a ground-cover on the sea bed throughout the southern European seas - particularly off mainland Spain's east coast and the Balearic Islands. It pumps oxygen into the water, without which no life forms can survive. If the sea is cloudy and sunlight cannot filter through, the plant dies off, with disastrous consequences (photo: Frédéric Ducarme/Wikimedia Commons)

The water became cloudy, meaning natural light could not get through to the marine floor, causing the meadows of ground-covering aquatic plants to dry up, die off and disappear.

Posidonia Oceanica – Mediterranean Tapeweed, or Neptune Grass, found at the bottom of Spain's eastern seas - acts in the same way as trees do on dry land: It 'eats' carbon dioxide and pumps out oxygen, meaning it is vital to the water's health.

Without this plant life, the Murcia inland sea literally ran out of oxygen.

This, known as marine anoxia, meant the creatures endemic to the Mar Menor also died off.

The result was hundreds of thousands of dead fish washing up on the shores in 2019.

 

Concerted effort to stop it happening again

Petitions calling for action to revive the 'dying sea' did lead to steps being taken, but with the environmental crisis so far advanced, existing laws were insufficient to guarantee its protection or reverse the damage permanently.

Now, this has all changed. Giving the Mar Menor a 'legal personality' means not only does the State and the regional government have a duty to guarantee its health, but the general public is legally committed to preserving it.

Long and hard campaigning to save the inland sea included gathering hundreds of members of the public in a human chain around its shores - a ‘Mar Menor group hug’ (photo by the association ILP Mar Menor)

Marine anoxia in the Mar Menor has come in episodes, rather than being a continuous state – at times of low industrial, agricultural or tourism activity, the water has become clearer and plant life recovering, restoring oxygen which enables the fish to survive.

Conservation programmes are aimed at dramatically reducing the impact of these activities on the enclosed sea, to prevent further cases of oxygen loss.

Solutions might mean restricting watersports that involve motorised craft, only allowing those craft that run on emissions-free power, rechannelling waste output – perhaps by redirecting rivers or diverting outfall to controlled areas on land – holding industry accountable for pollution, community beach clean-up days where volunteers collect and sort rubbish for recycling, and ongoing monitoring.

 

“A sea can't have rights, because it can't have obligations”

The entire Senate voted unanimously for the Mar Menor's new status, with the exception of the far-right independent party Vox, whose representative José Marín Gascón said an 'ecosystem cannot be considered a subject with rights' since a 'legal personality' also has 'obligations'.

Marín Gascón argued that 'legal personality' means automatic 'rights and duties' – that you cannot just have rights - and that 'duties' or 'obligations' could not be conferred on a sea.

It's not sunset on the Mar Menor yet. A People's Legislative Initiative (ILP) approved in the Senate means this beautiful enclave has full legal rights to protection and conservation. Dissenters argued this ought to mean it also has legal obligations, and that this was impossible; but the Mar Menor already fulfils its only obligation to the public - that of simply existing, for everyone to enjoy it (photo: Marta Martínez/EFE Verde)

But socialist Senator Fernando Lastra said the move was necessary to ensure protection for one of Spain's, and Europe's, most ecologically valuable enclaves where environmental legislation in place did not go far enough.

Lastra called the move 'a success' on the part of the community, and a sign of what ordinary society can achieve when it feels strongly enough about an issue.

Related Topics

  • Environment
  • Legal & Finance

You may also be interested in ...

  • Property for sale in La Manga del Mar Menor
  • Property for rent in La Manga del Mar Menor
  • Businesses & Services in La Manga del Mar Menor
  • Property for sale in San Javier
  • Property for rent in San Javier
  • Businesses & Services in San Javier
  • Property for sale in Cabo de Palos
  • Property for rent in Cabo de Palos
  • Businesses & Services in Cabo de Palos
  • Property for sale in San Pedro del Pinatar
  • Property for rent in San Pedro del Pinatar
  • Businesses & Services in San Pedro del Pinatar
  • Property for sale in Los Alcázares
  • Property for rent in Los Alcázares
  • Businesses & Services in Los Alcázares
  • Property for sale in Cartagena
  • Property for rent in Cartagena
  • Businesses & Services in Cartagena

Advertisement

Advertisement

More News & Information

Built not to last: How Spain is addressing 'programmed obsolescence'
Tech & Science 08/09/2021
Built not to last: How Spain is addressing 'programmed obsolescence'

NOW that Germany has become the first European country to tackle 'programmed obsolescence' head on, neighbouring countries look set to follow suit – and Spain has already started, albeit tentatively.

View
Details of low-emissions car-buying grants released
Transport 06/09/2021
Details of low-emissions car-buying grants released

A GRANT system to help with the costs of buying low-emissions cars has been renewed, and all bar five regional governments in Spain have released details.

View
Switching to solar: Grants, tax breaks and other help with the cost of 'green power'
Environment 14/02/2021
Switching to solar: Grants, tax breaks and other help with the cost of 'green power'

WHEREVER you've made your home or set up a pied à terre in Spain, you're not going to be short of sunlight.

View

Advertisement

  1. Spain
  2. Murcia region/province
  3. Costa Cálida
  4. La Manga del Mar Menor
  5. Mar Menor now a 'legal person': How the public saved a heavenly sea