Spanish farmers protest ecological threshold for Tagus river

By MANU FERNÁNDEZ and JOSEPH WILSON
Associated Press

MADRID (AP) — Farmers from southeastern Spain have protested against a government order to provide ecological protection for a river. They see it as a threat to  water resources they need for irrigating crops. Several hundred protesters rallied in front of Spain’s ministry for ecological transition. The ministry has set an “ecological threshold” for the Tagus river in hopes of keeping the Iberian Peninsula’s longest river healthy under the forecast of a hotter and drier future caused by climate change. The farmers rely on water rerouted from the Tagus to their lands to produce fruit and vegetables for Spain and the rest of Europe.