Word: medialdea
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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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...
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...
...Medialdea is a modest man, but as he watches the gawky birds poke through the water for food, he beams. "Because of our artificial intervention, the natural environment is improved," he says. "The point isn't to make use and conservation compatible. The point is to use in order to conserve...
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