It’s only when something happens that people feel motivated to act.

I’m from a town near Barcelona in Catalonia. I used to work in the river Ebro with spring mussels that are almost extinct. In Spain, the main problem used to be pollution, but now it’s the water flows that have to be preserved so that the species can live.

People were aware of the problem because of a national hydrological plan that would have extracted a lot of water for irrigation for Southern Spain. Social movements were able to change this, and now all the money that was targeted to that project is dedicated to scientific students. That’s why I’m doing my studies here on river ecology, which is great. But that’s only one project, overall, the situation hasn’t changed. People think that now everything is ok, they’re tired of fighting for the rivers, but we might have to do it again.