The water cops knew their way around the maze of strawberry fields and dirt roads surrounding the Doñana National Park in southern Spain. It still took more than two hours to find the exact spot where a well was siphoning water off one of Europe’s most biodiverse wetlands to cultivate lucrative crops. A handful of lush fig trees — a rare green patch in the increasingly parched region — and a white electricity box gave away the location.

Visual media produced in partnership with Outrider Foundation.
Tracking down unsanctioned wells over the vast area, where legal and illegal farms are haphazardly arranged, is “like finding a needle in a haystack,” says a technician with the local water authority. He asked not to be named because he’s not authorized to talk to the media and fears retribution from farmers. “We’re detecting more wells now thanks to satellite images, but farmers keep digging them because berry farming is so profitable.”

The agents sealed off the borehole with blue tape, but hundreds of additional outlaw wells continue to drain Doñana every day. The water use threatens the survival of migratory birds, the endangered Iberian lynx and hundreds of other species while exacerbating an unprecedented water crisis. The fight over who gets Spain’s water has even become a matter of national political dispute.