ARCHIVED - ANSE and WWF say eight tons of fish have been removed from the Mar Menor since anoxia began

The environmental associations have launched an informative campaign explaining the history behind the current problems

WWF and ANSE demand the creation of a green filter that stops surface contamination of the lagoon.

The organizations have asked Minister Ribera to declare works related to the stoppage of the discharge of drainage waters into the lagoon as "Emergency Works" in order to speed up the process (desalination plant and additional extraction of water from the rambla).

According to the organizations, the most serious fauna mortality in the known history of the Mar Menor has not ended and eight tons of dead fish have been removed, far higher than the figure given by the regional government.

WWF Spain and ANSE reject the measures proposed by the Regional Government of Murcia, such as deepening the golas or oxygenation of the water in the lagoon, as they are useless, will not solve the situation and aggravate the environmental impacts that the space already suffers.

The organizations oppose the transfer of powers in matters of Costas and the Public Hydraulic Domain to the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia by the General State Administration (as is being requested by the regional government, although this is widely recognised as being little more than political hot air which gives the regional government ammunition with which to criticise that the national government has refused to give it the powers it needs to tackle the problem, which is not the case).

Environmentalists WWF and ANSE have launched their own informative campaign 'No más veneno al Mar Menor' to inform society about the causes of the recent issues faced by the lagoon and to try to tackle the long-term effects of intensive agriculture, which they consider the main problem facing this body of water in the future.

The organizations have produced a report entitled 'The irrigation bubble' in which they denounce the passivity of the administrations that have allowed the irrigated area of crops around the shores of the lagoon to have multiplied almost tenfold in the last 40 years, to almost 50,000 hectares. According to José Luis García Varas, head of the WWF marine program in Spain, "the uncontrolled growth of intensive agriculture and the proliferation of illegal irrigation that dumps five tons of nitrates and phosphates every day into the Mar Menor has been aggravated by the operation of more than 1,000 illegal desalination plants, which dump their polluting discharges through brine pipelines and drains "

They demand that the Segura Hydrographic Confederation reinforce the inspection and sanction mechanisms and implement the nature-based measures necessary to stop the contaminated water continuing to flow into the Mar Menor.

"If we want to save the lagoon, the administrations must act on the causes that originate this crisis and urgently eliminate illegal irrigation," they say.

On Wednesday the Spanish national Minister for Ecological transition visited the lagoon to meet with local councils, environmentalists and the regional government, and urged the regional authorities to use the powers they already have to clamp down on the illegal irrigation, issue sanctions against those found to have illegally extracted and used water from the Cartagena aquifer and to revert the land back to its pre-irrigation status.

The Murcian government has said that it will be banning the use of fertilisers in the zone 1 area around the lagoon in a decree within the coming days.

A petition can be signed online calling for action: click here

The problems facing the Mar Menor are very complex. CLICK HERE to find out more (full background doc. in English).