With the "Salvem Farrajón" sticker stuck on his mother's back, a child shouted with a megaphone in hand in this natural area of Buñol. "Flowers, flowers, flowers, we want flowers from the field!" He was heard with vigor. He reproduced with undoubted joy the chant that, meters back, was shouted by some of the many protesters who attended the march called yesterday by the Valencian Coordinator for the Rational Location of Renewable Energies.
From the Plaza de la Virgen to the doors of the Government Delegation, hundreds of residents from more than twenty Valencian regions asked the Ministry of Ecological Transition for a reversal of the renewable installation policies in the territory of the Valencian Community.
"We need the rain of water and not megaprojects of photovoltaic plants without management. We defend the territory because we cannot afford to lose more useful agricultural surface and, above all, in the interior areas where our activity is linked to the landscape and to other businesses such as rural tourism or hospitality," says Carles Peris, general secretary of La Unió Llauradora y Ramadera.
The Union participates in associations that were on the march yesterday, such as Defend our roots (Les Useres), Per un Cabanes viu (Cabanes), Junts per la Terra (Vall d'Alba), La terra, casa nostra (Vilafamés) and Our Land (Les Coves de Vinromà).
In fact, Nostra Terra was leading the march. Theirs was the second banner, almost leading the way. "We are the tip of the spear," acknowledged Miguel Ángel Rodrigo, the president of the association. Like him, many other neighbors had traveled by bus from Les Coves de Vinromà to protest against "La Magda".
The macro project that runs through the areas of Vilanova d'Alcolea, La Torre d'en Doménec, Vall d'Alba, Vilafamés, Sant Joan de Moró, Borriol, Castelló de la Plana, Almassora, Torreblanca and Alcalà de Xivert. In total, the planned plant - and approved two years ago - will be composed of 258,622 bifacial modules (photovoltaic panels) and the installation will have a production capacity of 150 MWp.
"Now we are going to litigation. The neighbors have made a great effort to raise the financing to go to court by organizing evenings and activities and we have already paid 10,000 euros," explains Rodrigo on the walk to Plaza del Temple. He says that the French company Akuo, promoter of the solar project, does not have the support of more than 80% of the owners. "We will go to the end, we do not want the project despite the modifications they make and we tell the Ministry that way," Rodrigo responds.
The project had the support of all Valencian political groups a few months ago, when it came to public opinion, which at the local level continue to show it to the neighbors involved. He is critical in general of political management because, he says, "they make you grow a solar panel that is greener than a tree, but how is it going to be greener to uproot 60,000 trees?", he argues.
Yesterday there were protesters from Godelleta, Alcublas, Vall d'Alba, Camp d'Elx, up to a total of 22 regions. Jesús Broch, from the Coordinator, considers that the most serious problem is "the lack of organization." He denounces that all the projects, or the vast majority, go to the towns of the north and those of the interior, "because of the great problem that exists with rural land speculation."
"Rural energy colonialism occurs from Madrid in collusion with electricity companies, multinationals and everything that makes it easy for money to reach small town councils that cannot do anything with this bubble of projects," argues Broch.
Yesterday was a demonstration of the response of inland towns to renewable projects. Their appeal to the Government also extends to the Valencian Government, from which they ask for a modification of decree-law 14/2020 of measures to accelerate the implementation of facilities for the use of renewable energies due to the climate emergency and the need for urgent economic reactivation to have an energy model "in the hands of the people".
When reading the manifesto, they highlighted that on July 25 - the date has been postponed by six months - the deadline for a hundred projects that irrigate the Valencian Community ends. Pending are also pending, but on the other side, the renewable energy companies, who believe that the pace is very slow and ask the Administrations for agility in the processing of permits.
