Ebro Lands Biosphere Reserve
The Ebro Lands are a land of crossroads, a land of migration and transhumance. We have been a biosphere reserve since 2013, with two Natural Parks within it: the Ebro Delta and the Ports.
In a biosphere reserve, measures are aimed at achieving sustainable human-land interactions, for example, by using brush cutters instead of herbicides or fungicides. Both organic farming and extensive livestock farming are the ultimate examples of this sustainability.
The fighting bull, like the white goat of Soliera, has a historical connection to the region. Fifty years ago, the goat herd was 200, and it currently maintains a farm.
The extensive pasture system of these animals as well as that of the horse Camargue or sheep, contributes biodiversity to the ecosystem, serves to prevent fires by managing stripping and safeguards natural areas of high environmental value.
In our lands, the bull population has been stable for 170 years, with 1,200 head currently grazing some 6,000 hectares. This is due to their economic activity, the corral, which is well regulated by law.
Here, goats and sheep survive in extensive pastures due to the low viability of farms. Since only the wild boar maintains a stable population, it is the only effective manager of the Terres de l'Ebre Biosphere Reserve.
To give a few examples, we have blue crabs, corn snails, zebra mussels, American crayfish, and catfish as invasive species that destroy the endemic and native biodiversity of our Biosphere Reserve, since control is complicated and costly.
The breeders of Les Terres de l'Ebre, endorsed by the Minister of Culture, HC. Lluís Puig Gordi, and the Department of Culture, are going to create the Brau Breeders Association of the TTEE (Tête d'Étangs) with the aim of highlighting the breeding of bravo in an extensive system and promoting cultural, tourist, and food products derived from this activity.
This year we celebrated the third edition of the Ur "Aurochs Project" to highlight the environmental role of the fighting bull. We have achieved, among other things, approval for two interpretation centers on the history of the bull in Les Terres de l'Ebre and Catalonia, one in the Ebro Delta National Park and the other in the Els Ports National Park.
Animalism
"Animal abuse" or the use of animals is a reality because we are a species that benefits from exploiting other species. We are shepherds and farmers, and this fact has allowed us to grow and lay the foundations of our civilization.
The political and media exploitation of bullfighting in Catalonia is disgraceful, and even more so now that animal rights parties are so depressed. It's a minority attacking the rights and freedoms of another minority.
In this new century, with effort and dedication, we will be able to properly manage waste, gradually eliminate the use of fossil fuels, and maintain the quality of ecosystems (organic farming and extensive livestock farming) as values that ensure a more ethical use of natural resources. This is where extensive breeding and its use for non-bloody spectacles come in. This is what allows extensive breeding, as it gives it economic viability, which is the basis of the system.
Identity
In Les Terres de l'Ebre, we've managed to preserve our bullfighting culture, partly due to our American identity. Here we are, the Maestrazgo, for the Bishopric of Tortosa, the Maestre de Sant Mateu, and Castellà d'Amposta. We are Americans, just like the people of Aragon, Navarre, La Rioja, and the Basque Country, with whom we share two common denominators: the Ebro River and the fighting bull.
The debate that has been going on since the 1990s is about identity, not morality. A little historical culture shows that by encouraging animal rights, we are fostering a totalitarian ideology that induces chaos and respects no borders. When it attacks the bull and bullfighting festivals in Catalonia, anything goes, but when it attacks any other livestock or animal processing industry, it loses all reason. Why are bullfighting festivals morally questionable, but, for example, fishing, horse riding, meat consumption, pets, or intensive farming are not?
What they're trying to do in Catalonia with the bullfighting circles is impose one morality over another. We demand the right to have the freedom to educate our children as we were educated in the Ebro Lands, with the humanistic values that the world of bullfighting represents, of hand-to-hand combat with the beast, an inclusive and deeply rooted celebration.
Conclusions
The Ebro Lands Biosphere Reserve requires extensive wild grassland management and maintenance of biodiversity.
We need to ensure the survival of the herds of wild bulls in the territory, safeguarding the economic activity already regulated by law: the bullfight.
We need to be able to utilize the resources that the bullfighting world offers as a structuring and cohesive element for American society, a society that lives in the most rural and sparsely populated area of Catalonia.
We ask the administration to come out firmly to explain that there is no animal abuse in the corral, that it is a spectacle bloodless on which a moral judgment is made by a minority.
Just as the administration has made its voice heard regarding the trend of not vaccinating children, we demand the same sensitivity towards our already threatened ecosystem.
