Spain will become a desert by the end of the 21st century. 80% of its territory is prone to aridity due to desertification processes, according to Spain’s Environmental Ministry.
The environmental problem dates back to our arrival in the Iberian Peninsula (46,000 years ago), however, the gears that converted Spain into a 'desertification machine' were established during Franco’s regime and ‘Transición’ (1939-1982), with special intensity between the '60s and ‘70s in southeastern Spain, the driest region in Europe.
Francoism is usually associated with social repression but also established a state based on desertification, in which construction, agroindustry, or mass tourism were and still are essential keys for Spain's economy.
Semi-arid climate has been historically preponderant in southeastern Spain, but each concession to coastal tourism, agribusiness, damming, over-irrigation, overgrazing, abandoned quarries, rural depopulation... were proclaiming an accentuation and expansion of aridity around the peninsula, leaving a desertified future Spain.
During Franco’s time, several scientists studied ‘Spain’s desertification problems’ and their implications, but the absence of empirical information in the regime's media regarding matters of popular interest, as happens in most dictatorships, helped to legitimize this culture of desertification in favor of economic growth. The Spanish society was not well informed, while later generations inherited ignorance and culture of habitat destruction.
But how were these scientific alerts related to the current desertification state of Spain? ‘Eroding Franco’ represents a real opportunity to demonstrate a silenced past, its present consequences, and a future that is as discouraging as it is uncertain.