“The decision of the Xunta with respect to Altri is extremely disappointing and is difficult to justify as the best for the interests of Galicia.” This clear this Sunday, two days after the Official Gazette of Galicia published the green light of the Xunt RIA Foundationa non -profit organization that works “for the long -term sustainability of the constructed and natural environment” of the community. The creation of this entity, in 2017, had the personal support of who was then president of the Xunta, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. The successor of Feijóo, Alfonso Rueda, has reacted to the architect’s words. “I don’t know if you have all the information,” said Galician President.
Sir David Chipperfield (London, 1953) today Ana Patricia Botín or Marta Ortega. He is the author of the City of Justice of Barcelona or the emblematic Veles and Vents de València, but also of the restoration of the National Gallery or the Berlin Museum Neues, for which he received the Mies Van der Rohe Award. In London and Berlin he has two of the offices of his study, which also arrive in Milan, Shanghai and Santiago de Compostela. Sustainability has been the mark of all its laureate trajectory.
In love with the Marinera Village of Corrubedo (Ribeira, A Coruña) for three decades, Chipperfield – in the words of Feijóo – “has made Galicia his house” and that is why he has turned the community into the test bench of his philosophy, starting with the Ría de Arousa itself, to which its foundation carries in the name. There the Ulla flows, the river from which – just kilometers above, in Palas de Rei (Lugo) – Altri intends to drink up to a maximum of 46,000 cubic meters of water every day, the equivalent to the entire province, and return to its course, conveniently “treated”, two thirds.
This Sunday, the day the press is traditionally read, Chipperfield published an article in The voice of Galicia – Reference medium of the Xunta, in which The Ageas de Galicia file was filtered to the project– Titled “Protect the capital of Galicia”. In it, under a photo of the demonstration against the cellulose that overflowed the Praza do Obradoiro of Santiago in December, the architect considers that this mobilization “should have been understood as what was: the expression of a worried citizenship, which assumes with responsibility the debate, beyond the usual – and something manida – contradiction between economic development and environmental sustainability.”
For Chipperfield, that “confrontation” “can no longer be understood as a balance, you cannot simply justify any investment or reduce importance to potential dangers: a positive contribution to a sustainable future must be demonstrated.”
The “ravages” of eucalypticization
The president of the RIA Foundation does not remain in the environmental consequences that the macrocellulose can have, but – in line with his work method – he shows his concern about the productive model that will bring the infrastructure to be bor -muddled: “Beyond the worrying issue of pollution and the increase in water temperature – without doubt a topic with which we should not run the slightest risk -, the project brings with it the inevitable impulse to the cultivation of the cultivation Eucalyptus.
“The future of Galicia is not Altri. The wealth and future of Galicia are in their natural capital. The environment is his treasure,” he argues. Therefore, he believes that “promoting Galicia as a food producing land is a guarantee not only of environmental sustainability, but also of the quality of life that the territory offers.”
On the contrary, it does not see “justifiable” to foster “a forest crop that, in addition to degrading biodiversity, exerts enormous economic pressure on food production”; A pressure that, “inevitably” will replace “an active management of the productive land with another passive, consolidating a vague economy, which does not generate complementary activities.”
In conclusion, Chipperfield affirms that there is only one way of interpreting the Favorable Environmental Impact Declaration to the Altri industrial project: “as a discredit to rural economies and a resignation to the natural capital of the Autonomous Community of Galicia and its future quality of life.”
After the concentrations in a dozen locations in the ULLA basin this Sunday – convened and answered with the same urgency as the writing of the Chipperfield article – the next great mobilization against Altri will be next Saturday, March 22 in A Pobra, 13 kilometers from Corrubedo, the place where the architect began its relationship with Galicia more than thirty years ago. Surely, after their article, many will seek among the protesters.
Rueda: “I don’t know if you have all the information”
The president of the Xunta has reacted to the architect’s article. Alfonso Rueda said, in response to questions from journalists, who does not know if Chipperfield thinks all the data: “I don’t know if you have all the information.” He considered that this is “one more opinion that has been poured.” “Chipperfield, who also worked together with the Xunta de Galicia, as far as I know, did not request information about this project,” he added.
Before the media assured that the Xunta rules out to reserve specific financing for the Altri project. The Portuguese company has publicly stated that it aspires to capture 250 million euros of the Next Generation funds to lift its factory. Rueda insisted on asking the central government to expedite the management of that money from the European Union.
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