An ecocyclist march through the Mar Menor joins the groups that yesterday protested against the project to build in that dune area
Fifty people participated yesterday in an eco-cyclist march through the Mar Menor. And they joined forces with a similar number of people who concentrated on Monte Blanco, to claim there, at noon yesterday, the maintenance of this dune site, which was environmentally restored a few years ago by the Association of Southeast Naturalists. About twenty groups, including the ANSE itself, supported the concentration, whose objective was to denounce that the maintenance of the natural values of the flora and fauna there is “incompatible” with the project promoted by the Autonomous Community and supported by the City Council, to build a social and leisure complex that energizes that part of La Manga.
“We have documented the existence of more than 200 lots throughout the area that could house these facilities. And it only occurs to them to propose it in one of the few remaining places where you can see what the La Manga habitat was like before it was almost completely urbanized, ”explained Francisco Ruiz Salmerón, promoter of the initiative. “There are impoverished sports facilities. There is the old summer cinema and even the premises of what was the Municipal Institute of Litoral Services (Imsel). They say that almost all are private plots, but surely they can convince the owners, “he added.
«We already have very few areas that allow us to save the La Manga ecosystem and this is one of them. So we are not going to let them urbanize it without showing our discontent, “said Rocío García, who was in charge of collecting signatures for the Popular Legislative Initiative in favor of approving in Congress a specific protection figure for the salty lagoon. “They are issues related to the good of the Mar Menor,” he added.
Among the 26 associations that supported the initiative, there are from environmental movements to neighborhood groups and from different social and cultural spheres. “We are not against a development that improves the quality of life of citizens, but we believe that, as it is proposed, this project led to the opposite,” added Ruiz Salmerón.
“The project is neither sustainable nor inclusive”
The proposed complex for the municipal plot of Monte Blanco revegetated by AE will be financed with European funds. The groups that reject it highlighted the “contradiction” of carrying it out, “at the same time that urban recovery proposals are being undertaken within the Sustainable and Integrated Urban Development Strategy (Edusi). What is important are the last two words and this building that they propose to do is not something that favors sustainability in La Manga and does not suppose anything integrating for urban planning in the area ”, pointed out Francisco Ruiz Salmerón. The mayor, Noelia Arroyo, plans to meet with neighborhood representatives on Thursday to convince them of the benefits of the project. For her part, the PSOE deputy Carmina Fernández has presented a motion against in the Regional Assembly.
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