The Mar Menor lagoon is essential to the region’s identity, local tourism, small-scale fishing and unique flora and fauna, including water birds. Surrounded by one of Europe’s key agricultural regions, it is the continent’s largest saltwater lagoon.
 

Nitrate discharges from intensive agricultural activity, as well as other polluting land and marine activities, have led to the lagoon’s rapid degradation. The Spanish Government launched an ambitious intervention, aimed at restoring the natural dynamics and solving the problem from the source, by supporting sustainable agriculture, cleaning up abandoned and polluted mining sites, sustaining social participation and much more.