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Everyone affirms that Doña Paquita would never have allowed a four-star rural hotel to be built in the heart of her empire, which includes Los Genoveses Bay . It was not in vain that he was awarded the Andalusian Medal for his unconditional defense of the virginity of the heart - and without a doubt the most international image - of the Cabo de Gata natural park . Not even with the excuse that is put forward in the project that the pigs and a few and very humble shepherd houses are constructions, and therefore it is a mere rehabilitation. But Doña Paquita died in 2014, so this battle is fought by other actors; Yes, with the same argument as always.
The tourism project is not bulky in numbers, a 30-room hotel , but it would be located in a symbolic enclave such as the Marismillas estate in Doñana. For this reason, and due to the lively controversy of the Algarrobico, a strong protest has arisen that has caused even the Ministry of Agriculture and Sustainable Development to show lukewarmness. "The Board has not authorized a hotel in the Genoveses", but "a rehabilitation of the Chiqueras farm ", according to its delegate in Almería, Aránzazu Martín .
This farmhouse is collected by the book of the Ministry of Development Cortijos, haciendas y lagares (2004). It is a small set of a plant, an old pig farm -in Almería the pigs are called chiros-, from the early 20th century, with a factory to convert esparto and pita into ropes and scourers, barn, well, goat pen, oven and four houses, one for the pastor and three for sharecroppers.
This is the basis for talking about rehabilitation by the company - Torres y González , led by Doña Paquita's nephew, César Torres-, City Council and Board. Las Chiqueras is in the middle of nowhere, the spectacular nothingness of Cabo de Gata. A kilometer away the Los Genoveses cove opens, and a stone's throw away is El Romeral, the main farmhouse on the estate of José González Montoya and his widow, Doña Paquita.
The president of the Governing Board of the park, Hermelindo Castro tells EL MUNDO that he is going to request a meeting of this consultative body so that the hotel project, whose document they will require, is analyzed in depth . In the first instance, it considers the claim to rehabilitate the farmhouse to be "legitimate", since recovering old heritage without increasing buildability forms part of the Plan for the Management of the protected area.
The Algarrobico
Castro has fought in equally tough squares after being CEO of Protected Natural Spaces. He notes that "a black vulture called Algarrobico flies over Cabo de Gata, somewhat unpresentable, but a stigma that causes permanent and logical citizen pressure." For him, the underlying debate that should be addressed in Cabo de Gata is a classic: "there is no conservation without reasonable use ." It only remains to agree on the reasonable concept.
The biologist Rosa Mendoza , former director of the natural park, believes that the Management Plan encourages growth in urban centers, not in a scattered way, and altering uses that are part of environmental protection. "If this now fits in an agricultural facility, in two years it will have a place in other farms," for example, the other three on the same farm. She believes that "the carrying capacity of Cabo de Gata is exceeded , it has become a tourist attraction for all of Andalusia."
"Cabo de Gata is very complex, and it has been 33 years with this type of tension," adds the former director. The very origin of the park was precipitated in 1987 -before the vast majority- to prevent the County Council from building the coastal road. This gave birth to the environmental movement in Almería and the powerful social activism that continues.
Before the Algarrobico - immersed in a skein of half a dozen legal processes - the 50-room hotel that the architect Alvaro Siza designed for the restorer Luis Mantilla would come in the 90s, next to the Cabo de Gata salt flats, also in Níjar. The efforts of the then Ministry of the Environment to avoid it, alleging the absence of a unified environmental authorization, caused the Deputy Minister Juan Jesús Jiménez to be prosecuted - he would be acquitted - for paralyzing the work.
Perhaps this proceeding motivates the current mayor of Níjar, Esperanza Pérez , to indicate that "if the law says that it can be done, there is nothing more to talk about; if whoever has a right, the Administration does not recognize it, they would be committing a crime "
The City Council (PSOE) and the Ministry (PP) are looking sideways, but they support the project, arguing that it has been retouched to reduce the number of rooms and parking by 13 and that, in short, it is "an eco-hotel ". The Friends of the Park Association points out the lack of water in the region -the hotel must stock up on the reused water-, and the contradiction that a beach, even with vehicles authorized to enter, opens its hands to hotel use. For Juanjo Carmona , of WWF, "it is not a problem of more or less impact, it is that the project is unnecessary and its location totally inadequate", a space "of great value to which some only put a price, that of a hotel night in low season".
Procedures
The project still has a process that insurance resources will slow down . Time is a quiet concept in Cabo de Gata. In the twelfth century, the extinct volcanic dome that presides over the cove saw the Genoese fleet anchor - hence its name - and the departure of the ships for Lepanto . In the farmhouse a legendary character worked, the royal husband of the crime that inspired Lorca 's work Bodas de Sangre . And there Juan Goytisolo walked to write the book that put Nijar on the map. A map that has hardly changed, awaiting the debate on use and conservation.
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