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Cementing over a unique cultural landscape in Andalucia. by Richard Spalding, Dianne Shenton and Neil Morgan reporting from the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The stifling heat of August in the river valley of the Guadalfeo, south of Granada, Andalucia, acted to drive the population in this part of the Alpujarra indoors and out of sight of the latest confrontation between dam builders and developers on one hand and an increasingly well organised, but beleaguered group of locals, smallholders and environmentalists on the other. The 130 metre high wall of concrete that is the Rules Dam continues to rise from the floor of the valley north of Velez de Benaudalla. It is due to be completed by December 2002. The reservoir that will be created behind this vast wall will provide water for Almunecar and its increasingly thirsty coastal strip of intensive, destructive (1) agricultural systems and, of course, the tourist industry. The water to fill the reservoir will come from the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Much of this water (in the form of snow melt) was previously captured and utilised in community-controlled water sharing systems based upon permeable irrigation channels (acequias) and associated storage ponds. The result was a subsistence landscape, greened and tended by human endeavour. A landscape of great biological diversity enhanced by anthropogenic activity. |
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Depopulation in the region since the 1960s has led to a progressive breakdown in such local (and truly sustainable) water control mechanisms. The agenda of changing water control also manifests itself through a seemingly unstoppable thrust to make water a commodity open to the highest bidder. This agenda is working itself out on the global stage, yet it also happens in particular places like the Alpujarra. It seems that the local population with their irrigation ditch associations are also falling prey to an even more insidious move to channel water through the ditches by concreting them, thereby losing much diversity and natural erosion control. |  |
| Money for work parties to carry out such 'improvements' is flowing from the Autonomous Region of Andalucia to individual municipios (parish equivalents) who seem unable to prevent the notion of 'big is beautiful ' from pervading all water thinking despite the very real possibilities of spoiling an area that is being promoted as valuable for tourism! And yet it was small scale, locally controlled water systems which created the very landscapes out of which water is now being sucked, changing them forever for the worse. The latest chapter to be fought by locals is not focused on the Rules Dam itself or plans to entube parts of the river system (which have been successfully fought by local pressure groups); but rather on a plan to build a massive silt trap up river just below the confluence of two smaller rivers as they join the Guadalfeo. |
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In March of this year it was possible to find two red steel rods either side of the watercourse marking the alignment of this intended structure. It wasn't until early August that a roadway was driven up the valley side to the site. Clearly something was about to happen at a time of year when the populace is most affected by heat-induced torpor and therefore least likely to be in a position to organise some effective resistance. The problem here is that no-one was able to get access to details of the proposal for this silt check dam. The cynic would argue that the heat haze of mid summer provides the ideal smokescreen behind which to effect the latest piece of the development jigsaw by stealth, without any formal consultation with the local population; not even providing the Environmental Impact Assessment required by EU law. |
| Certainly the words of the World Commission on Dams recent report which suggest that one of the keys to dam building decisions in the future lay in proper public consultation seem to have fallen on deaf ears. | ||
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| Concrete is everywhere, at every scale, from large dam to smaller silt dam to individual irrigation channel. It is irrevocably changing what has been unique about the Alpujarra for millennia. It is causing a total destruction of the area's intrinsic natural beauty and wasting time, energy and resources on erosion traps of a type that are only effective for a very short time before nature continues on its ineffable course. Surely the Andalucian and indeed national Spanish authorities must act to save this 1200 year old cultural heritage before people are only left with sad memories of what it was really like to live in a sustainable system? | ||
| There is a dark side to recent developments, not only in this region but throughout our World, and it has to do with the absence of proper democratic procedures, procedures which were upheld for centuries when the planet's abundant resources were held in common. Water has become a commodity even in the Alpujarra and that water is being tainted in the race to supply the new global thirst for corporate profits at any cost, regardless of the damage to ordinary people and their environment. |  |
When the devastated locals confront the developers on site in the near future, protest in Brussels at 'The Blue March for a new Water Culture in Europe' and in other major cities where these ill-devised plans are concocted, our only hope is that the response by those in power, who have proven time and again to not know what they are doing (1), is not as misguided, heavy handed and blatantly inhumane as recently witnessed in other disputes of this nature. |
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People and landscape together matter here, as everywhere - far more so than any authoritarian edict crafted for the short-term profit of financiers and owners of cement works. Finally, it is worth noting that 'Guadalfeo' means ugly river, characterizing the potential of natural systems to upset even the best laid plans of mice and water salesmen. |
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Neil Morgan edited and facilitated the production of the piece. Reference:- 1) "Scientist coverup 'Toxic oil syndrome' in Spain" by Bob Woffinden - The Guardian (London) Saturday August 25, 2001 - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4244093,00.html |
'The world is a sacred vessel
Not to be acted upon.
Whoever acts upon it destroys it.
Whoever grasps it loses it.' - Lao Tsu in 'Tao Te Ching'
Please send all enquiries to:-
richardspalding@blueyonder.co.uk cc:'d to dianne.shenton@hjbanks.com
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