The Popular Legislative Initiative to give legal personality to the Mar Menor will continue its parliamentary process after having received the support of all the parliamentary groups of the Commission for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge of the Congress of Deputies, except Vox. Outside, activists, social and environmental groups from Murcia and other parts of the country participated in a rally in support of this ILP.
It is only the first step in a process that began with the collection of more than 500,000 signatures and which must then continue in the Senate to return to the Lower House. The President of the Commission, Juantxo López de Uralde, began the session by congratulating himself on “the popular revolt in defence” of this natural area.
Teresa Vicente, professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Murcia, was in charge of presenting the initiative. She referred to the serious ecological damage that the Mar Menor has suffered and continues to suffer, and denounced the ineffectiveness of the current regulations and the inaction of the public authorities. After years of degradation, he said, civil society has united to convert this enclave into the first ecosystem with its own rights in Europe.
Vicente explained that the multiple protection figures that the Mar Menor has (RAMSAR Wetlands, Natura 2000 Network, among others) have not limited the environmental impact of urban development or irrigation in the Campo de Cartagena, but now, thanks to the ILP, it can be defended “from a new vantage point: the rights of nature”.
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