Last weekend I visited the coast of Galicia which was greatly damaged by Spain’s largest ecological disaster, the sinking of the single-hulled oil tanker the Prestige in 2002. Much has changed in seven years and now the coast is one of the cleanest in all of Europe. Last weekend was also when the court ruling over the guilt of the captain of the ship was reviewed and reaffirmed. There is more to the story, in the aftermath of what John Hooper, author of The New Spaniards, called the Spanish “story of the year,” Galicians “became so incensed with their [the government’s] performance that they took matters into their own hands, first in Santiago de Compostela in a demonstration called by an ad hoc group calling itself Nunca Máis (Galician for ‘Never Again’); then in other Spanish cities. Most humiliatingly for the government, the demonstrations spawned a volunteer movement to clean the Galician coastline, an operation the authorities seemed incapable of organizing by themselves.”*
The disaster was so great and the public reaction in Galician so strong, is seems that Galicia has become infused with a strong sense of environmental protection. Sadly, the Prestige was not the last environmental disaster to hit the city of A Coruña. A few years ago, a mountain of a landfill in A Coruña toppled into the adjacent valley, destroying many houses and reportedly killing someone. The city reacted strongly, cleaned up the mess, closed the landfill, planted vegetation on top of it to stabilize the soil which had turned into compost over the years, and now it is a public park. For this effort, the city won an award in the International Awards for Livable Communities program in 2001
Much like the clean up after the Prestige accident, it’s a great thing that the area has rebounded so strongly and is now cleaner than it was originally, but it’s a tragedy that a disaster needed to happen to encourage the effort. This habit is a very large problem since it relies on the idea that there is always a second chance to go back and fix a mistake. When it comes to global environmental issues, like Global Warming, we don’t have a second chance, we need to react before the disasters hit and we can’t get back to the climate equilibrium we had before. .
I also saw a giant blue bubble structure in the port. I asked my friend what it was and they explained that A Coruña is a major port in Galicia and so it receives a lot of coal and petroleum. In the bubble is a massive coal pile and the bubble was recently constructed to prevent the coal dust from polluting the city. In the past, when the coal pile was exposed, there was so much coal dust in the air that when you hung your white Zara**shirt out to dry it turned black. Plus the damage done to the aquatic life in the port from the polluted rain water runoff from the coal pile going into the water. While it’s a problem they still have to rely on coal, and they are increasingly investing in wind power in the region to reduce that reliance, it is a good thing they are using coal responsibly.
Spanish/Galician environmentalists are also lucky, linguistically as the word papel mean means paper and role in both languages. Which lends itself nicely to these signs on recycling bins (translated: your paper/role is important).
It seems that Galicia is one of the greener parts of Spain, both literally due to rainfall and figuratively, but that the efforts are inspired by disasters. On my bus ride home, I could see a forest fire in the distance and a helicopter bringing water to try and put it out, luckily it was not a national news worthy disaster. I hope that Galicia will not need another one to inspire its people to keep working to protect the environment.
* Hooper, John. The New Spaniards. New York: Penguin (Non-Classics), 2007.
** Founded in Galicia and the CEO has a house in A Coruña
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