5 September 2011
The hotel El Algarrobico under construction at the Natural Park of Cabo de Gata, with a Greenpeace ship moored nearby
MADRID - A dozen Greenpeace activists occupied hotel El Algarrobico this morning.
The hotel has been built without the necessary permits in the natural park of Cabo de Gata, in Almeria. The activists want the hotel to be pulled down, three years after the first verdict against its construction, said Greenpeace spokesperson Pilar Marcos in statements to the press. On September 5 2008, the court of Almeria declared the license for the hotel's construction illegal and void. This morning, the environmentalists put up a banner on the hotel's façade reading: ''That are they waiting for?".
''Only one month to go to the dissolution of the 'Cortes' (Parliament) and two to the election of November 20. Two terms have passed now with promises made by the socialists, the central government and the Andalusian Council,'' the Greenpeace spokesperson pointed out. ''We want to see a written promise that this environmental atrocity will be torn down." Greenpeace wants this pledge to be ratified by the Council of Ministers.
The Greenpeace activists entered the 21-level hotel at 7.30am and occupied the seventh floor. ''We are waiting for a decision by the Supreme Court on September 21, which should ratify the verdict issued by the High Council of Andalusia that defends the plan for natural resources from 1994,'' Pilar Marcos explained. The Andalusian Court recognised in an order issued on October 28 2010 that the area where the El Algarrobico has been built is ''a protected natural area that cannot be urbanized,'' as is also stated in the 1994 natural resources plan for the Cabo de Gata Park. The construction of the hotels has come to a halt, but the Municipality of Carboneras, which has issued the license that now has been declared illegal, has not ordered the hotel to be pulled down yet. Greenpeace is suing for damages in the trial.
Source: ANSAmed.
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