Lydia Spencer-Elliott
MURCIA’S residents and academics are petitioning to make Mar Menor lagoon a legal person to protect it against ‘ecocide’.
If successful, the legislation will grant the salt water lagoon the right to ‘exist as an ecosystem’ with protection from legal guardians, protectors and scientists.
Officials have given the environmental activists nine months to get half a million signatures so the plan can be voted on in parliament.
It comes after Vicente Gimenez, a professor from Murcia University, first proposed the idea to parliament in July.
In response, Los Alcazares council have published a report suggesting that giving the lagoon rights might be ‘unconstitutional’.
Murcia’s Mar Menor lagoon was once a picturesque location with flamingos and sea views back-dropped by volcanic skylines.
But due to ‘ecological unbalance’, blamed mostly on irresponsible agriculture methods and poor sewage systems, the stinking lagoon has since driven away tourists and harmed Murcia’s property market.
