And if the worst invasive species were neither an animal nor a plant?

On May 17, 2003, Environmental agents removed the first snake in Ibiza, a horseshoe snake specimen that a gardener found while watering olive trees that had arrived from Andalusia. Two weeks later, a second specimen appeared, this time a white snake, and three more were removed that same year. That is to say, it all started 23 years ago and, since the first case, the arrival of snakes could be linked to the entry of olive trees through luxury villas. But two decades have passed and the olive trees still come in, because nurseries want to keep making money and because our politicians are afraid of setting limits to the lack of control, lest the neo-capitalist mafia system that dominates the island kicks them out of their seats. The snake invasion is much more than a biological invasion; it is a symptom. The symptom of an island that has lost its way. It is difficult to find a more precise metaphor for what is happening, because, in the end, what is behind it is an economic model that exploits Ibiza without control, which corners and expels the people of Ibiza, whether they are lizards or human beings.

There is another part of the issue that we often forget, but which is also symptomatic, and that is the plundering of centenary olive trees in Andalusia for the luxury market. The destruction of historical heritage to feed the whims of the wealthy without conscience. It is not the poor snakes that are responsible for what is happening, although they pay with their lives, but a predatory system that devastates everything. With the olive trees came the snakes. With speculation came impossible prices and the destruction of the territory, the unsustainable consumption of resources, the destruction of aquifers... With the unbridled luxury born around an oversized leisure sector came the expulsions of the local population. All explained by the same invasive model and presented as progress.Meanwhile, the population is urged to kill snakes like in The Simpsons' 'Trash of the Titans' episode (if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it). The olive trees keep coming, more luxury villas are being built, and scientists analyzing the biological invasion warn that lizards are disappearing at an unusual rate. And in the face of all this, no one is taking responsibility for the disaster. But there are those responsible, of course there are.The only solutions offered to us are those typical of a society that does not respect animal life, as if we were nothing more than animals. This invasion raises many questions, of course, and one is whether, in those early years I mentioned at the beginning, the problem could have been controlled and whether these first snakes could have been returned to the Peninsula (where, let's not forget, they are protected). And yes, I know a bunch of experts will tell me no, that these things are not viable and blah-blah-blah. In reality, what they mean when they deny this possibility is that it is an expensive solution and that killing is easier. I remember that on these Islands, not so many years ago, yellow-footed seagulls were also shot because they were classified as a plague, and today we know that it was an atavistic and useless savagery. How easy it is to kill. How cheap.In any case, I do not intend to knock down the solutions that are being adopted here, but I do want us not to forget that they are sad and very imperfect solutions because we did not act in time. Shelters have been created for lizards and specimens have even been transferred to the Barcelona zoo as if it were the great hope for the conservation of the species. We continue to fail to understand that the populations of a species are not just genes, that cultural heritage is added to genetic heritage, that which is linked to a specific territory, to a vital habitat for its connections. Understanding this cultural heritage makes the difference between a science of the past and the conservation of the future. Mediterranean sperm whales have their own culture, even their own dialect, and, if we lost them, we would not lose the species, but we would lose a unique culture adapted to the place it occupies in the world. You can put a group of Ibiza wall lizards in a terrarium, but it will never be the same, because you only preserve genes and maintain this archaic way of understanding life from a human perspective. Are we still in time to save the lizards? We don't know. But we should also ask ourselves if we are in time to save what makes Ibiza a living community beyond the luxury facade. Because the human Ibizans are also fighting to survive an invasion. Maybe we will also end up in a zoo. Or in an Indian reservation. Would you understand then that the important thing about a population is what keeps it rooted to a territory? Be it a islet, an island or a sea with its marine currents.