Navarro environmental expert and activist Fito Jiménez dies
- ==Death==Fito Jiménez, a native of Cintruénigo, Navarre, died on 21 August of a heart attack in the Arbaiun foz. He will be buried in the morning in the cemetery of Pamplona/Iruña. He was 71 years old and was known, among other things, for being an expert in environmental issues, especially in the field of water, and for his activity in various popular movements in Navarre.
Jiménez, a native of Cintruénigo, had been living in Pamplona for a long time. After studying in Barcelona, chemical engineer, he moved for ten years to Central America in the late 1980s, being sent by the Spanish Agency as advisor on environmental issues of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. When the Sandinistas lost government, he went to Guatemala. He also worked in El Salvador and in Chiapas, Mexico, in the latter in cooperation with the well-known activist Rigoberta Menchu.
Her partner worked in America with the Navarra journalist Pili Yoldi and on her return to Pamplona, the Environmental Resource Center of Navarra started working in the public company, where she remained until her retirement in 2016. He participated in the Urbizi network, formed by groups working for rivers and around water in different regions of Navarra, contributing an important contribution to the group. As for water management, he fought against the large projects that have existed in Navarre in recent decades, such as the reservoirs of Itoiz and Yesa or the Canal de Navarra.
In the 2017 interview by Reyes Ilintxeta at ARGIA spoke in depth about these issues, making it clear that if water is collected in the reservoirs its control is lost: “Water is not wasted by leaving it in the river. If the water did not reach the Mediterranean, for example, all beaches would disappear and the fish would disappear in the same way. The water is not ours, but the water of the river, the water of the ecosystem. We have to ensure that the river functions properly. That is the only guarantee for the future.”
Basically, in this interview he explained the opposite view to the major developmentalist projects promoted and carried out by governments: “The same arguments are always used in the presentation of any megaproject, be it the TAV, motorways, reservoirs or airports. It created 8,000 jobs in Itoiz, consolidated two or three thousand farmers, attracted tourism to Aoiz and Artzibar, developed the industry and also ensured the ecological flow, among many other things. They always show excessive numbers, and then you see that reality is half of that half.”
In 2016 we published LARRUN – in the wake of the river sinking in Navarra – which analyzed the evolution of the Pantano de Itoiz and the Canal de Navarra, and in the house of the Chantrea district of Pamplona, Jiménez patiently explained to ARGIA where the basic keys were to not get lost in the water curves. In 2014 he received the Coagret Environmental Prize for his work against the expansion of the Itoiz and Yesa reservoirs.
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