España no es país para ríos

"Spain is not a country for rivers" analyzes the situation of forty rivers out of the nearly thirty thousand that run through the lands of our country. There are forty rivers that represent them all, because the problems that our rivers suffer are common to all of them: reservoirs that prevent the circulation and renewal of water, the destructive introduction of exotic species, pollution from industry and the agricultural model. , its indiscriminate use to generate energy and irrigate huge orchards..., all these factors are ending the life of our rivers. Despite the consequences of climate change, which hardly anyone dares to freely deny anymore, which combines water scarcity with occasional periods of torrential rains, the solutions currently proposed remain the same as those put into practice a century ago. : damming the rivers and squeezing their waters even more. Currently, if you explain that the old solutions are no longer useful, many experts, connoisseurs, planners, politicians and citizens shrug their shoulders, or do not believe it or trust that technology will overcome this specific problem as it solved other more serious problems before. , like the Prestige disaster... But there are no magical solutions. Without clean, flowing and free rivers, much of Spain will become a sad desert. There are no longer pearl mussels in almost any river in Spain because its waters are not clean and do not run free, salmon do not go up the riverbeds and trout disappear. But the most serious problem that our rivers suffer from is forgetfulness, the ignorance of all of us, the scant attention we pay to them, even though we give great importance to its water as a resource to irrigate, drink, produce energy, drain our waste or decorate a landscape. . Because a river is something more than an irrigation canal or the end of an urban sewer. Next to a river humanity began to build cities and dream of a future.