The Spanish government approved a controversial plan last Friday to divert one of the country’s largest rivers in the north to the arid regions of southeastern Spain. Environmentalists say the plan to drain the Ebro River will violate European Union laws on water management and ruin the habitat of the Iberian lynx, which is on the verge of extinction. They hope to pressure the EU to withhold funding for the plan as a result. Last fall, about 300,000 demonstrators marched along the banks of the Ebro to protest an earlier version of the plan.
