From being used so much, the term pioneer has become worn until it becomes a dull word. But if anyone had the right to have that adjective completely loaded with meaning next to their name, it was . Because he was a true pioneer in environmental law in Spain. For two decades, until last September, he was the coordinating prosecutor for the Environment and Urban Planning of Spain. The first, because that prosecutor’s office was born by his hand back in 2006, when the brick seemed like it was going to eat up the entire coast and bought councilors wherever it wanted. Later, his department evolved into other environmental crimes while awareness for the defense of the planet grew and specialists in this matter were established in all the country’s provincial prosecutor’s offices, of which, without a doubt, Vercher was an authoritative voice.
Vercher died this Saturday at the age of 72. He was born in Tavernes de la Valldigna, Valencia, and dedicated his life to law and the defense of our common home. “Environmental crime is a form of suicide,” he explained to EL PAÍS in last September, when he retired and had to leave the prosecutor’s office. “I’m leaving sad. I like what I’m doing, things are going well and, despite the regrets, the system is moving forward. And you think: there’s so much left to do,” he admitted.
Because Vercher wanted to continue, although his 72 years already prevented him from doing so. He said it without losing his smile, although with the vertigo in his voice of not being clear about what was going to become of his life after having dedicated it completely to that vocation. He retired, but remained active writing articles, preparing a new book (), traveling wherever he was invited to listen to his teachings, and heading the Advisory Council of European Prosecutors.
His first book, Comments on ecological crime, He published it in 1986, only three years after that figure was introduced into the Spanish Penal Code. “I read the book when I was Secretary of State for the Environment,” recalls Cristina Narbona, president of the PSOE. “And I wanted to meet him when I began my time as minister in 2004.” Narbona and Vercher collaborated in the reform of the Forestry Law to try to tackle the problem of fires and it was there that the creation of the Environmental Chamber prosecutor’s office was introduced, which Vercher took over in 2006.
In the successive modifications of the Penal Code that have been undertaken in Spain, Vercher was always a voice to listen to. Although this prosecutor was concerned that too much criminal proceedings were used. “In 1983 there was only one article on environmental crimes in the Penal Code, 347 bis. Now we have almost 50 and only 42 years have passed,” he said six months ago.
Vercher, as Narbona recalls, advocated the “preventive and not just punitive function.” And from time to time he sent letters to the State Security Forces and Bodies and institutions alerting about problems such as forest fires, urban planning, animal abuse, air pollution… In addition, he always tried to look for innovative formulas and alternative paths in the law to tackle environmental problems.
The third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, has described him as a “reference inside and outside our borders” on social networks. “He leaves us the duty to preserve what he dedicated his life to,” he added.
Vercher also leaves behind, in addition to such a renowned career, a son of whom he was proud and who, like him, decided to dedicate himself to law and today is a judge. And a garden in his town to which since September he could dedicate a little more time.
