Nature and journalism, your two passions?

I've always liked writing and I also have a passion for animals. In my case, I believe that both hobbies were associated with the issue of Camille's bear. It was a milestone for me. When Camille appeared in Navarre, in the late 1990s, I was asked to make some reports. So I started to get into that terrain and, above all, to meet people. That's the most important thing for me. Meeting very interesting people who are working on environmental issues and learning things from their hand makes you want to know more. After the traces of the bear, I started in Roncal. Then he took me to Asturias and since 2003 I have gone every year. Here in Navarre, for me, the members of the Gorosti group are very important.

After the bear and now you've seen the wolves.

For the past eight years, I've been looking for bear in Narcea's council with the friends of the FAPAS team, and there are also many wolves there. They're like ghosts, because you can't find more than a clue. Now we've seen them in Zamora. I have just completed a weekend course with biologist Javier Talegón. It has a great hobby and a great transmission capacity. Being able to walk on the mountain with an expert like that is a terrible thing.

Terrible?

It is clear to me that the most dangerous animals are humans, especially with shotguns and poison. The wolf has a very bad reputation and it is true that it causes damage, but things have to be put to the right degree. The reality of the wolf cannot be managed from the point of view of a farmer or farmer. You have to strike a balance. If there is damage, they have to be paid, but it is better to prevent aggression. First you have to learn what the wolf is, how it lives, what it eats, when and why it attacks in the flocks… If there are wild boars and boars, it will not attack the flocks. And you also have to know what the benefits are. Among other things, it is always an attempt to capture the weakest specimens, so in this sense it helps to keep the herbivora population solid.

Can you say something similar about the bear? How has the issue of the bear been handled in Navarre?

I understand that not all the information can be given, especially when there are extreme positions, but in the case of Camille almost nothing has been said and when something has come out it has focused exclusively on certain media. Here in Navarre there is compensation when aggressions occur, but without them they have so far been paid to the farmers for having their animals in the enclosure where the bear was. This subsidy has disappeared this year. The list of bear attacks of these years shows that it has had a very small impact and that it has affected very few farmers. The members of the FIEP Group have on several occasions criticised the management of the bear so far by the Government of Navarra, because it has done nothing but pay for the damage. They propose that the pastor be recognized as a creative biodiversity and that this activity be rewarded in order to highlight the positive in that relationship between the bear and the pastors and improve that relationship. From the point of view of the bear this path seems to me to be appropriate. As an antispecist, I can do nothing but question what is behind livestock farming, because for the farmer the animal is an economic resource mico.Por other side, in
Asturias tourism has had a great boost in recent years thanks to the bear, but care must also be taken because you cannot walk the mountain and the animals as you like.

Did you see the performances of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente de menor?

Yes, I am Felix's daughter in that sense. I have at home your encyclopedia Fauna. The way in which they work has been questioned on many occasions. I am convinced that this work would have clear and dark aspects, but the influence of the documentaries of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente over a whole generation is undeniable. I belong to that generation. I was watching television when Rodríguez de la Fuente appeared. With him, I discovered, in part, animals like nature and the wolf. Later I've come the path to anti-specialism. But the footprint that he left hasn't disappeared. It had tremendous transmission capacity. Biology schools were filled with it and various environmental groups were created throughout the State under its influence. Last summer, I met her little daughter, Odile, who leads the foundation, and it was for me to meet a football player famous for today's children.

Since when is it vegan?

The “Begano Card” I pulled it out on 8 March 2005. Many times, by way of criticism, people who are an activist in the field of animalisms, I am surprised by the things that are told: “Are you in favor of animals, but what about the children of Africa or the situation of the woman?” Some don't understand. They think that because we take care of other animals that are not humans, we don't care about humans. So I deliberately chose Women's Day to start with veganism. I'm vegan and I'm dealing with women's issues, for example. We are being asked for explanations that nobody is being asked for. It looks like vegans have to be perfect. I'm vegan and knitted, and I don't think that's the magic key to solving all the problems.

In Euskal Herria, we live close to nature, or that we want to believe, but veganism here is hard, right?

Yes. We have a great tradition of using animals, and anti-specialism is difficult here. It happens that in society everything is confused. You have to see that environmentalism, veganism, antispecialism -- they're not the same thing. I don't identify with the word environmentalist. Ecologists usually care about the state of some species, but anti-specionists go more against the use of animals, for all animals. I'm not interested in just endangered species.

Are the Sanfermines in Pamplona unthinkable without bulls?

Here, too, things are changing, some groups and peñas have already begun to organize different things. I'm optimistic and I think things are going to change. It is clear to me that I must not give an alternative. What is wrong, I say it to you. And even if there are no alternatives, you have to take away what's wrong, simply because it's wrong.

What is antispecism?

Specism is a species discrimination. For example, in this case, man uses other species for his own benefit. In experimentation, it looks very clear. We cannot understand experimentation with human beings. Like us, many animals have the central nervous system and therefore the ability to suffer and feel pleasure. That's what makes us all equal. These qualities give an animal the right to live, as we do. Today, we mainly exploit animals to eat. If we were able to eliminate this animal industry, we would eliminate most of the problem. The animal production industries consider cows, pigs, rabbits to be products… All. They are also for those who eat these animals. They are an object for us and we use them because they bring us an economic benefit, and it seems to us that we can do anything with them. It's not a need, it's a business. There are a lot of videos that show that suffering, and what you don't see is because you don't want it.

But the animals eat each other…

It's another world, and you can't equate it. It is a necessity for them, not for us. We have another opportunity. Similarly, an Inuit has to hunt animals to live, and I won't say it doesn't have to catch or eat. This is another reality. In my view, the main problem today is industry. Business use. And we should not go to extremes. As a vegan I am often confronted with extreme surreal situations that will never happen: imagine that you are alone in the world and that you have a pig in front, and that you have nothing more to eat and what would you do? I'm sick of that, really! Before our eyes many things are happening every day, the things that we have in our hands to change, I want to focus on this. Consumers have great power, and if we don't go to zoos, circuses, aquariums, if we don't eat animals, we can get something.

Moving on, you've written a lot about the resistance struggle around Itoitz's reservoir.

The following year will be ten years since the destruction of houses. Unfortunately the wall is there, but the people of Itoiz are not there. I believe that many have been lost in this struggle: the people have lost part of their history, their children’s home, the cemeteries where their ancestors are buried and the Government of Navarra has gone out of it all very cheaply. In addition, it is not yet over: there is everything that is happening around the canal of Navarra. People have started to move against this infrastructure, seeing what has been spent and what is going to be spent in the second phase. Farmers are beginning to say that they do not want a channel because they have to make tremendous investments when profitability is not guaranteed. However, this struggle has had many good things. The kind of struggle, for example, was very enriching.

Another of his most important works has been the book on input. Specialist in civil disobedience, are you also disobedient?

At home I have not been disobedient, but I am also disobedient in my own way. In a sense, being vegan is being passive. The case of Itoiz brought me closer. I didn't know the input so much, and once in it, I found a lot of things that surprised me. The input movement encompassed a wide range of faces, groups and strategies and how they managed to show a common image to society. They had a lot of strength.

In 2001, the need for military service was ruled out. Today's young people don't even know what a solace was. Had his flame been extinguished?

It was an issue that all young people had to do in those years and that also affected the people around them, so it was very widespread in society, it had a good handle. It was a useful instrument for fighting armies. Today, it's harder to find a handle. There is no doubt, for example, that the money spent on weapons worldwide is massively questioned.

Now what do you have in your hands?

I'm preparing a book about the animalistic movement. I want to explain here and out what this movement is doing. As in the other two books I have written, people’s testimonies will also be based on them. I'm not so interested in making history of movement, but in meeting the people who are there and asking them why they're anti-specionists.