EQUAL TIMES (5/12/2022)
On a breathless summer morning in El Rocío, a village bordering Spain’s Doñana National Park, Juan Romero points to a map detailing the surrounding area. “Here are the berry crops,” he says, tracing their encroachment of the park from the north and west. “It’s all full of plastic.” For years, the retired teacher-turned-activist has documented the worsening impacts of intensive berry cultivation on Doñana with the group Ecologistas en Acción. “Agricultural interests have taken precedence, and what matters least…is the conservation of Doñana,” says Romero. “This is unsustainable, unviable.”
Across southern Spain and Portugal, row upon row of plastic greenhouses stretch to the horizon where rain-fed olives, grapes and wheat traditionally grew. Together, the Iberian countries are Europe’s main producers of water-intensive berries. Many defend Iberia’s berry industries as lifelines in impoverished areas with few other economic opportunities. Yet others question why one of the continent’s driest and most climate vulnerable regions, prone to water scarcity and desertification, is feeding Europe’s growing appetite for berries (…)
Read more: https://www.equaltimes.org/in-the-iberian-peninsula#.Y42l8exBzVU