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...rare for a farmer to appreciate the predators that eat the animals he raises. But Miguel Medialdea is hardly an ordinary farmer. Looking out on to the carpet of flamingos that covers one of the lagoons that make up Veta la Palma, the fish farm in southern Spain where he is biologist, Medialdea shrugs. "They take about 20% of our annuel yield," he says, pointing at a blush-colored bird as it scoops up a sea bass. "But that just shows the whole system is working...
...Working, indeed. Located on an island in the Guadalquivir river, 10 miles (16km) inland from the Atlantic, Veta la Palma produces 1,200 tons of sea bass, bream, red mullet and shrimp each year. Yet unlike most of the world's fish farms, it does so not by interfering with nature, but by improving upon it. "Veta la Palma raises fish sustainably and promotes the conservation of birdlife at the same time," says Daniel Lee, best practices director for the U.S.-based Global Aquaculture Alliance. "I've never seen anything quite like...
...Veta la Palama is different. In 1982, the family that owns the Spanish food conglomerate Hisaparroz bought wetlands that had been drained for cattle-farming and reflooded them. "They used the same channels built originally to empty water into the Atlantic," explains Medialdea. "Just reversed the flow." Today, that neat little feat of engineering allows the tides to sweep in estuary water, which a pumping station distributes throughout the farm's 45 ponds. Because it comes directly from the ocean, that water teems with microalgae and tiny translucent shrimp, which provide natural food for the fish that Veta la Palma...
...call it the pata negra of sea bass," says Hisparroz president Luis Contreras, referring to the highly prized Spanish ham made from Ibérico pigs. Like those pigs, Veta la Palma's fish not only forage for most of their own food (shrimp instead of acorns) but enjoy longer lives than their industrial counterparts. Most sea bass is harvested when it's big enough to fill a plate - about 14 oz. (400 g). But at Veta la Palma, they wait until each fish weighs 2 lb. (1 kg), a process that takes three to four years. The result...
...found under the Amazon. Investment in exploration will top $1 billion this year, something the administration does not want to lose to protests. "This government wants to occupy the Amazon with concessions as if no one lived there, but it has come up against indigenous resistance," says La Torre. "What is needed now is a plan to stop the bloodshed and make sure the martyrs on both sides did not die for nothing...