Mar Menor : histories from the critical zone / Juan Manuel Zaragoza Bernal

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zaragoza Bernal, Juan Manuel, author.

Series:

Cambridge elements. Elements in environmental humanities

Cambridge elements. Elements in environmental humanities, 2632-3125

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Environmental degradation--Spain--Mar Menor.

Environmental degradation.

Marine ecology--Spain--Mar Menor.

Marine ecology.

Mediterranean-type ecosystems--Spain--Mar Menor.

Mediterranean-type ecosystems.

Mar Menor (Spain)--Environmental conditions.

Mar Menor (Spain).

Spain--Mar Menor.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2026

Summary:

"The Mar Menor, Europe's largest saltwater coastal lagoon, was long sustained by high salinity and low-nutrient waters that supported remarkable biodiversity. Since the late twentieth century, however, intensive tourism, industrial agriculture linked to the Tagus–Segura water transfer, and legacy mining pollution have driven accelerating ecological degradation. The eutrophication crisis of 2016 and the mass anoxic events of 2019 and 2021, which caused extensive marine die-offs, marked a profound ecological and political rupture. In response, a civic movement led by Teresa Vicente achieved an unprecedented outcome in 2022: the lagoon was granted legal personality, becoming the first ecosystem in Europe to obtain such status. This Element examines the social, legal, and scientific transformations surrounding this case and argues that recognising the lagoon as a subject opens new possibilities for rethinking human–nature relations and imagining more-than-human political communities grounded in ecological justice"-- Cambridge Core

Contents:

A deep history of the Mar Menor

Modern tales : from Spanish-American War (1898) to developmentalism in Franco times and the struggle for water in democratic Spain

Green water and dead fish

We, the people of Mar Menor

More than a legal revolution : ecological justice and the terrestrials in the Mar Menor

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge Core, viewed June 24, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version: Zaragoza Bernal, Juan Manuel Mar Menor

ISBN:

9781047759649

1047759640

OCLC:

1585481496

Publisher Number:

CIPO000379526

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license