The undersigned organizations and individuals address Catalan society, all municipalities and City Councils of the Catalan Pyrenees and the Government of the Generalitat of Catalonia to warn of different threats that loom over the environment and the conditions and ways of life of the Pyrenees:
BERGUEDÀ (LET’S SAVE COL DE PAL)
Expansion of the La Molina ski area by Coll de Pal
Extension of the Alp 2500 cable car to Niu d’Àliga, connecting Cerdanya and Berguedà with the construction of the Coll de Pal chairlift, 93,000m3 water reservoir, facilities hub and parking for 174 vehicles. The overcrowding of this space would have serious consequences on the landscape, the natural hydrological cycle and air quality, indirectly affecting the Cadí Moixeró Natural Park.
Splitting of the C16 between Berga and Bagà
Project to implement a reversible lane and split between Berga and Bagà (C-16) with an initial cost of 178 million euros and a duration of the works of 18 months. This infrastructure is very far from the real interests of the population of the Berguedà region, and in any case, it responds to the economic interests derived from snow tourism in Cerdanya. Its execution would lead to the degradation of the territory, the consolidation of an obsolete tourism model and the abolition of a route that until now still had agricultural and transhumance uses.
RIPOLLÈS (PLAFORM WE STOP THE LES LLOSSES ROAD ESTATE)
Polygon on the Llosses road
Creation of a new industrial estate that does not respond to a real need for industrial land since the municipality of Ripoll currently has seven industrial estates with 39,509 m2 of available warehouses and 17,662 m2 of free plots of industrial land. In the rest of the region there is also currently abundant available land built or planned. Some examples are the industrial estate of Colònia Llaudet in Sant Joan de les Abadesses, the one of Niubò in Campdevànol and the Farga de Bebiè, in Les Llosses.
RIBARGORÇA (HUSC)/PALLARS JUSSÀ (UNITARY PLATFORM AGAINST THE ELECTRIC HIGHWAY)
Montsó-Isona electric motorway
Re-powering project of the Escalona-Foradada del Toscar and Escalona-Escalona high-voltage lines: first steps towards electrical interconnection through the Aragonese Pyrenees.
CERDANYA (ASSOCIATES SAVE THE MILL AND SAVE THEM)
Urban irregularities and abandonment of infrastructure in La Molina (Alp)
1) Attempt to approve the POUM (09-11) which allowed tripling the building areas in space and volume, as well as legalizing urban irregularities. Once stopped thanks to the application of eight litigations and a criminal complaint, the Consistory hinders the execution of already final sentences against it. Without initiating any dialogue with the association to achieve a new POUM.
2) Lack of care for buildings and infrastructure.
3) Now there are new threats such as the “PDU La Molina-Masella” Master Plan which would act as a “protective umbrella” for the Winter Olympics candidacy led by the Generalitat (Secretariat of Sports and FGC) and supported by the Alp Town Council, all of them public entities. These projects feed back on each other and can lead to unnecessary and aggressive urban-environmental actions, motivated by the speculative interests of a few investors.
4) Interested in control of soils to be declassified.
New urban development area in a mountain village of high landscape value (Éller)
Forecast in the POUM of Bellver of a new urban area at the entrance to the Éller nucleus. The POUM is currently being reviewed by the Urban Master Plan for the review of unsustainable soils in the Alt Pirineu, which proposes its reduction in extension, instead of its complete extinction, like other revised nuclei. From SalvemÉller we demand extinction because:
1) It contradicts the guidelines established by the Plans of the Department of Territory and Sustainability of the Generalitat for the town of Éller
2) It represents unsustainable growth, which would more than double the current number of homes, leaving the historic town in the background.
3) It would negatively impact the livelihoods of the current permanent inhabitants of the Éller village, based on livestock farming and sustainable tourism.
4) It would involve excessive growth that would generate a strong environmental, social, landscape and cultural impact on the town of Éller.
5) It is unpopular among the residents of the village, who have mostly spoken out in favor of its extinction.
We are committed to the sustainable development of Éller and the Pyrenees as a whole, respecting the local economy, the natural and cultural environment, and we defend an economy based on added value and equity, and not on speculatively exhausting the natural, cultural and landscape environment.
MINING EXPLOITATIONS:
PALLARS SOBIRÀ/OCCITANIA (SAVE SALAU-SIGMADOT-STOP MINE SALAU)
Gold and tungsten mining:
Attempts to exploit these metals in the Alt Pirineu Natural Park affecting the headwaters of the Pallaresa, around the emblematic site of Salau. The attempt to carry out the simplified environmental assessment has been rejected, and now it must be done through the ordinary route. This is a speculative attempt, given that the shares have fallen as the mobilization has grown, by the companies Neo Metal Spania (Pallars Sobirà) and Neo Metal France (Arieja), subsidiaries of the Australian Apollo Minerals Limited.
The operations could cause arsenic and asbestos contamination.
BAIX PALLARS (LO PEDRIS-SIGMADOT)
Cobalt exploitations:
The mining company, Cobalt Rock SL, related to an Australian company wants to open a cobalt mine in Peramea – Bretui, near Moncortès lake and within the Conca de Tremp – Montsec Geopark. Presentation of allegations by Lo Pedris, Baix Pallars City Council and SIGMADOT.
Serious contamination of the aquifers of the Montcortès lake, the Prat del Comú wetland and the water sources of the Gerri de la salt pans could occur.
Salt, or in the aquifers of Noguera Pallaresa itself, by drilling about 400m. The amount of cobalt there does not justify opening a mine.
THE ALT EMPORDÀ (SIGMADOT)
Talc mines:
Attempts to restart them in the municipalities of La Vajol, Darnius and Maçanet de Cabrenys, already exploited by Talcos Pirenaicos, bought by the multinational Talcs de
Luzenac, closed the Catalan mines and dynamited them for safety reasons (except Mina del Negrin). Now the company Mineralia, associated with the Conesa group, wants to open them again and if it were to be done in the open air, it could have a major environmental impact. The mayors of the three towns have complained.
THE RIBES VALLEY- RIPOLLÈS- (SIGMADOT)
Gold mining:
In the past century, attempts were made to exploit gold minerals, associated with arsenic and antimony minerals. It failed, causing major pollution. Now, new explorations have been requested. It affects: Toses, Planoles, Ribes de Freser, Campelles, Pardines and Queralbs. The mayors and the Regional Council have already presented allegations.
This set of urban plans and projects will entail serious cumulative impacts, both environmental and landscape, on the entire Pyrenees with significant negative effects on mobility, water resources and overexploited aquifers, the landscape and the sustainability of the territory.
CANDIDACY FOR THE WINTER OLYMPIC GAMES
“PYRENEES-BARCELONA 2030” :
Until now, information regarding the “Pirineus-Barcelona 2030” candidacy has been managed with a certain secrecy and sectarianism, and with a great lack of transparency and citizen discussion that has not allowed it to be brought to public debate. This lack of transparency is evident when these decisions are taken from Barcelona without taking into account a large part of the territory’s own population.
Within the context of general climate change in which we find ourselves, the progressive warming and a growing climate disorder are already evident also in the Pyrenees, affecting the natural environment and the most fragile ecosystems, especially unbalancing the coldest places. This evolution of the climate also influences the economic use made of snow, due to the irregularity in the snowfalls, whether natural or artificial. For this reason, we believe that it is not possible to ensure the viability of carrying out the tests during the specific days of the Olympic Games. However, this scenario requires us to urgently reconsider the strong current commitment to snow tourism and to stop the strong public investments in this sector.
Beyond the climate arguments presented, the set of plans and projects that would be implemented could have environmental and landscape impacts on the entire Pyrenees. The investments that would be made most likely do not respond to the real needs of these regions and, on the contrary, continue to damage their water resources (more problematic in periods of drought, such as in 2008), neglecting mobility and forgetting the need for a change in the socio-economic model of the territory.
Finally, the refusal to host the Olympic Games in countries with better climatic conditions such as Innsbruck (Austria), Calgary (Canada) and Sion (Switzerland) should serve as an example of the inevitable need to consult citizens before making any decision, as well as alerting us that the project may not be viable in the Pyrenees.
In the absence of the necessary information that we do not have today, and with the experience of what has happened in similar projects, we fear that this project will lead to speculative movements and involve some irreversible destruction of a territory as sensitive as the Pyrenees and cause damage to its biodiversity, to the geological field such as materials, reliefs or to natural processes. We also fear that it will involve the creation of artificial, precarious and temporary employment, opposed to the sustainable economic model that we defend. Finally, we do not want the construction of infrastructures that would be abandoned after the Games.
All of this, right now, prevents any other position from ours than total skepticism and initial opposition to the 2030 Olympic Games Project.
FOR ALL THIS, THE UNDERSIGNING PLATFORMS AND ORGANIZATIONS AGREE:
To constitute the coordinator of SOS PIRINEUS platforms in order to face the defense of the territory together, gain strength and be more effective. To denounce all those urban and speculative projects that negatively affect the development of life in the Pyrenees and the preservation of its spaces of natural and cultural interest. To promote a campaign of public debate and actions to defend the territory before the green light is given to all the urban and exploitation projects set out in this manifesto. To fight against job insecurity, depopulation, large-scale industrialization and speculation.
For all this,
WE ASK:
1. The approval and provision of an effective regime that protects forest areas, areas of natural and landscape interest, as well as the natural connectors of the Catalan Pyrenees.
The public administrations competent in urban planning must ensure and ensure the adequate preservation of its values, while preventing their destruction due to urban and mining issues, as well as the construction of infrastructure or any other intervention that damages the environment while stimulating sustainable activities.
2. The Declaration of Biosphere Reserve, increasing the number of proposals for Geological and Mining Parks, due to their high natural interest, both biological and geological, which would be added to those currently in the implementation phase, by SIGMADOT (Solsonès. Noguera and Llitera – Ribagorça) all of them in the Pyrenees.
2.1. Approve motions in support of the request to declare the Pyrenees as a Biosphere Reserve and increase the number of Geological Parks.
3. The declassification of forests or other forest spaces that include meadows and natural connectors as: urban development, ski slopes, artificial lakes, parking lots, as well as mining areas, industrial areas, electric highways, etc.
4. We urge all the City Councils of the Pyrenees to proceed to initiate processes of review of urban planning or specific modification files, for the declassification of undeveloped urban land and for the declassification of unconsolidated and unexecuted urban land, on land with forest mass, steep slopes or with visual and landscape impact. Especially in areas where there has already been strong urban development.
5. We urge the Generalitat of Catalonia and the Parliament of Catalonia to approve a package of measures that guarantee a dignified socioeconomic model for the Catalan Pyrenees in which its inhabitants are the central axis of its social and economic policy.
An economic model that is based on the recovery of trades, such as livestock farming or farming, preserving native and endangered agricultural and livestock species, preserving the different local idiosyncrasies to create a society with opportunities in different sectors, including technological and scientific ones, not just tourism.
7. We demand the urgent holding of a consultation and an in-depth public debate around the “Pyrenees-Barcelona 2030” candidacy in relation to hypothetical Winter Olympic Games held in the Pyrenees and decided in cities and offices unrelated to the reality of the territory.
8. We demand the recognition of Pyrenean identity and culture as a legacy of high value for Catalan society as a whole.
9. Creation of channels that stimulate participatory processes with the aim of involving the population in the territory.
10. We ask all interested organizations and individuals to adhere to the manifesto through https://sospirineus.cat and contribute to the campaign to raise donations for the defense of threatened areas of the Pyrenees.
This manifesto aims to be the starting point for a popular Pyrenean unity that allows people to live in the Pyrenees in a dignified manner, with respect for the environment, while providing opportunities for people who want to live, grow and stay in this territory.
That is why we invite any person or entity to participate in this process that is just beginning and that we would like to see everyone participate in. Pending the launch of a participatory process at a local level that allows us to delve deeper into the real needs of the territory.
For any questions or contributions, contact us via email: sospirineus@gmail.com
NOW IN THE PYRENEES WE ARE STILL IN TIME, WE ARE NOT WAITING FOR IT TO HAPPEN LIKE IN OTHER PLACES!
Organizations that support the SOS PIRINEUS manifesto:
Save Salau, Save Coll de Pal, Forward Alt Urgell, Stop the Industrial Estate on the road to Les Llosses, Save Éller, Save la Molina and Unitary Platform against the electric motorway, AV Lo Pedrís, SIGMADOT, Center for Territorial Sustainability (CST) and Naturalists of Girona.
