-By Belén Municio-

Dolphins recently took advantage of the confinement to wander and browse the Mediterranean ports. At the gates of summer, attentive to the signal to lower the flag, hundreds of thousands of humans throw their towels over their shoulders to the assault of the waters.

The headlines alert us that the first planeloads of European tourists arrive in Palma. Poseidon’s home after three months of forced calm will be usurped, and we remind the new owners that they will have the responsibility of caring for and loving our watered home.

The sea between the lands, the scene of cultural and commercial exchange for a multitude of peoples and races, a spectator of the death of Icarus and the temptations of Ulysses, the Mare Nostrum, now suffers.

The Mediterranean is the sea of records, although it is the deepest closed sea in the world, and occupying less than 1% of the earth’s ocean surface, it has more than 17% of the planet’s marine biodiversity with its more than 17,000 species, unfortunately holds the sad record of being the most polluted sea on the planet.

It is estimated that Spain throws out 126 tons of plastics per day, placing it as the second country that dumps the most plastics into the Mediterranean, behind Turkey.

While on November 16, 2010, UNESCO declared the Mediterranean diet Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, tuna, swordfish, turtles, monk seals, even seabirds, oysters and mussels…. they ingest plastics that inevitably lead to their death.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that the native Mediterranean plant was baptized with the name of a goddess, the posidonia, protector of its calm waters and author of that deep blue transparent sea. Posidonia is now also in serious danger of disappearing. Human action, the anchoring of the numerous boats, climate change threatens those special marine forests, and without them the waters will become cloudy, sand will disappear from the beaches and the fish…

Some studies say that the simple contemplation of the sea produces calm, and that the color, movement and extension of the sea have a resting effect on the brain and the entire nervous system.

Let’s transform that calm into generosity. Today one more threat lurks, images of masked masks or floating gloves are finding their home next to the bluefin tuna. The great paradox: what is protecting us destroys life.

Oh Poseidon! We invoke you to grant us the gift of dolphins and that words and actions become waves of care, respect and awareness in people who have forgotten that we are one more piece of the puzzle of nature, that our survival is at stake. the letter of exercising what defines us, humanity, in the broad sense of the word.