Mundaka. Worth saving.
Since learning about the restoration of 40,000 cubic meters of in Laida by taking sand from Mundaka’s famed sandbar, surfers are taking action. After talking to regular surfers from Mundaka, scientists, and concerned institutions, we need to organize and create an active figure, a committee representing anonymous surfers, surf clubs, the local surf industry, the european and even the global surf industries can be present from the beginning of future interventions of any surf spot when the quality of its wave is threatened. Surfers can be part of the design and plans to protect our coastline and our waves. We’ve started our work of looking for all the official information, technical studies and economic impact investigation that were publicly available, all to gauge if the sand movement could and would have an impact on the quality of the wave. As some surfers claim, it was a flashback to 2003, rebuilding the huge dune of Laida that created havoc on that wave.
The problem we face is that waves have no legal figure of protection. They are not monuments, natural landmarks, or wildlife. Now, with the situation facing Mundaka the best wave in the Basque Country is at risk. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never surfed it. It doesn’t matter if you went once and you were snaked, or if you experienced tension in the lineup. It doesn’t matter if you are from the village, from Getxo, Algorta, Giputxi, or if you are in the Federation or not. Every surfer needs to rally together so the institutions feel we are united in taking care of our coastline, knowing that we represent thousands of people and jobs in the surf industry. The global surf community will stand with the Basque Country against any activity that risks the few world class waves we’ve got. Mundaka is probably one of the biggest assets of the European Surf Industry; of all the Basque surf industry, and if Mundaka was not a world class wave, the image of Basque surfing would be greatly affected.
We can’t determine how the project is going to affect the wave just yet. But with the experience of past alterations on a sand system, the uncertainty created by the scientist in charge of the study of this intervention, and the pure logic of taking a mountain of 100 meters x 100 meters x 4 meters high from a sandbar, we can only wait for the first swells of the season to see its impact. And until then we can only do our homework and come together to create a single, powerful voice representing the surf world.
