First modification:
In September, the Spanish Senate granted legal status to this salty lagoon, threatened by lack of oxygen. But it is not the only environmental initiative. In Mexico, they are committed to reviving henequen, a plant whose fiber could replace plastic; and in India they are importing cheetahs 70 years after the species became extinct there.
For the first time in the old continent it was recognized that an ecosystem has rights. The Spanish Senate approved a law that gives legal personality to the Mar Menor, something similar is sought in the Netherlands with the North Sea and in France with the Loire River.
And it is that as France 24 in Spanish had already explained, millions of fish, crustaceans and marine plants die in the Mar Menor due to lack of oxygen. The waters are mainly polluted by agricultural fertilizers.
The legal personality for ecosystems has already been recognized in other countries such as Ecuador, Colombia and New Zealand.
Mexico wants to recover the “green gold” with henequen
In the Yucatan Peninsula, there has historically been henequen, a plant from which the Mayans have extracted a fiber so strong and malleable that it can replace plastic and be used to make ropes, sacks, threads, and much more.
Due to this class of properties, henequen was considered the “green gold” in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century in the Mexican southeast, since it was also the economic engine of the region. Currently, in the Peninsula they are trying to position henequen throughout the world, with which they hope for a new economic awakening.
Cheetahs return to India after 70 years
After traveling more than 8,000 kilometers in a two-day journey by helicopter and plane, eight cheetahs have reached Kuno National Park, in the state of Madhya Pradesh in central India.
The five females and three males were transported from Namibia on the first intercontinental voyage of this species. Everything is part of the Cheetah Project, which India began in 2009 to try to recover this feline, after its extinction in the Asian country in 1952. The plan of the Narendra Modi government is to increase the population to 40, a project that costs around 11 million dollars.
Some experts welcome the decision, saying it is a moral duty to bring back the only large mammal that has gone extinct in India since the country’s independence. But others call it a vain project that ignores scientific facts, such as that the African cheetah is different from the Asian cheetah, which is now only found in Iran and is in danger of extinction, according to the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
In addition, it is a difficult project since in order for the cheetahs to have a place to live, the authorities relocated those who lived near the Kuno park, the dogs had to be vaccinated for the diseases that they could contract from the felines and they have even put new species for which to maintain the cheetahs’ diet, such as spotted deer, blue bulls, warthogs and porcupines.
The greatest difficulty is space because cheetahs need areas 10 times larger than those required by tigers and up to 40 times more than a lion.
#Environment #Mar #Menor #ecosystem #Europe #recognized #rights