Thursday, March 28

The Monegros rise up against a macro-farm with 4,000 pigs in the ‘geological museum’ of the Sierra de Jubierre


The construction of a pig farm for just over 4,000 heads in the heart of the Monegros, in the Sierra de Jubierre, has put its inhabitants on a war footing, who are protesting the environmental impact that it will generate throughout a natural emblem of the area, the very touristy tozal de la Cobeta. For this reason, a protest march organized by the Platform for the Sustainability of Los Monegros was recently called, which brings together residents of different Monegasque towns.

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This association shows its outrage at the “lack of sensitivity” of local administrations. As he points out, the environmental impact statement of the pig farm already indicated that it was going to be built 32 meters from a Site of Geological Interest (LIG), the Jubierre mountain range, “without anyone raising doubts about its location.” It passed the administrative procedures without opposition and construction has recently begun. The visual impact on the tozal de la Cobeta, the most photographed torrollón in Los Monegros and its natural emblem for two decades, is lamented.

The pedestal is the most outstanding of the Jubierre mountain range, a place that has been gaining in relevance over the years and that attracts a significant number of visitors. Due to its size, uniqueness and beauty, it is also the scene of numerous filmings. The Nowhere festival is held there, with 4,000 participants, and receives the 8,000 bikers of the Orbea Monegros Marathon. Andreu Buenafuente and Berto Romero recorded one of the promos for their program ‘Nobody knows anything’. The Sierra de Jubierre has also been the setting for the filming of ‘Uncertain Gloria’, a film by Agustí Villaronga, or music videos by musicians such as Pablo Alborán.

Promoted by an individual and located in the municipality of Sariñena, the operation has the corresponding permits. The environmental association SEO Birdlife was the only one that submitted allegations to the environmental impact statement, although after the deadline and without focusing on its visual pollution, which has caused the most stir in the territory after the construction works began and spread several images through social networks.

The Platform for the Sustainability of Los Monegros criticizes the “attitude and inaction” of the local and regional administrations, “the same”, they denounce, that they have had in the face of the “threat” and “proliferation” of the large wind farms that have been projected in different points of the region and that derived in the own creation of the group. Faced with this, they are surprised by their “immediate” opposition to Seo Birdlife’s proposal to protect the Monegasque steppe with the creation of a National Park.

“Arguments and attitude that are missing when the projects are to fill the territory with megamills or new farms, close to places of great environmental and landscape value. No one gives an explanation or statement, critical voices are ignored. Our political representatives have already decided our future, and we do not share it”, they add.

The objective of the march last Sunday, October 30, to the tozal de la Cobeta was “both to highlight and enjoy this emblematic landscape of the Sierra de Jubierre, a place of enormous environmental interest and spectacular beauty, as well as to protest, not against the construction of pig farms in general, but against its location within the very heart of this mountain range”.

They are outraged that “current legislation has allowed our local, regional and regional authorities to grant the relevant permits for its construction in this particular place.” Therefore, “from here we urge public administrations to strengthen their policies for the protection of natural spaces of public interest like this so that something like this can be avoided and does not happen again”.

The Platform is made up of a very diverse group of people that includes farmers, farmers, pensioners, teachers, officials, artists, hunters, lovers and scholars of the Monegros, among others, “whose main concern is focused on the protection of the territory and in its development through increasingly sustainable formulas”.

They were formed as a group last year to question and protest against the invasion of the macro wind farms that are currently projected in the region, against “the opacity and lack of citizen participation with which this process is being carried out even when it involves a radical transformation. of our territory and also to promote self-consumption and the creation of energy communities as an alternative”.

With this critical spirit, the popular march to the Cobeta tozal was convened and they will continue “organizing similar actions. Actions that, in addition and in general, highlight the lack of administrative protection suffered by numerous natural spaces in the Monegros.



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