Two forest fires, one in 2010 and the other in 1994, affected one of the two expressions of rock art in the municipality of Balones, in El Comtat. In Beniarrés and Benimassot, luckily it has not happened yet, but there is a risk... So on in numerous locations that the Association of Forest Municipalities of the Valencian Community (Amufor) has been analyzing in various works since 2018 and in a latest report in which advocates making cave paintings an opportunity for population growth.
"In a museum in the cities there are many measures to protect art, but in the mountains art is totally unprotected and that has consequences," explains Chelo Alfonso, president of Amufor, an entity focused, among other things, on protecting rock art. that hides the interior of the Valencian Community. In this case of the fire that burns, year after year, numerous hectares in Valencian territory.
In the last work they have analyzed the recurrence of forest fires from the period 1993-1995 to 2014-2015 in the central area of Maestrazgo de Castellón, the Valltorta and Gasulla nuclei, the middle basin of the Júcar, and the orographic knot of Alcoia- Comtat and the Marina Alta, the main areas of rock art. Thus, they also focus on the 17 unpopulated towns in Alicante with rock art manifestations and analyze, one by one, the planning for the prevention of forest fires at the local level with the inclusion of proposals for improvement.
After last year's experience with the intense fire in Vall d'Ebo, in Alicante, they assure that "we are arriving late and we are doing it on tiptoe". That is why they have been working on various related projects for some time, the last one focused on raising awareness the opportunity that it generates for the municipalities to have these findings, declared World Heritage 25 years ago in favor of the Rock Art of the Mediterranean Arc of the Iberian Peninsula (ARAMPI) by UNESCO.They think that there is an open door through its conservation and sustainable exploitation especially for those localities plagued by depopulation.
That is why they defend that municipalities must adapt their local forest fire prevention plans to the particularities of areas with cave paintings and consider them; and that the higher public administrations must “contribute to its execution”. Here they highlight the Government's Secretary of State for Culture, from whom they point they have always obtained collaboration for the conservation of heritage.
His thesis is that sustainable forest management of rock art protection environments will generate employment in the primary sector with the transformation of biomass into solid biofuels, with the exploitation of non-timber resources or with the help of livestock with its role as pastures. firebreaks, but also in the industrial sector if the transformation of the agroforestry product in the territory is committed, and in the service sector with the transformation of the cultural resource into a tourist product.
Likewise, Chelo Alfonso explains that now is the time for each municipality to be able to develop the proposals in their territory, although he recognizes that in such small towns “it costs us a lot of money to value this and that is why other much-needed things are prioritized. It is by financing, but not by will ”, reflects Alfonso, until recently mayor of Andilla and now councilor for the Environment.
In their analysis they have included in detail the necessary jobs in the uninhabited territory endowed with rock art in the Mountain of Alicante, a specific case because there are 17 municipalities with ARAMPI demonstrations, which are part of the Valencian Anti-Depopulation Agency.
His analysis proposes vacancies in forest management tasks (pruning, clearing, resalves, etc.); conservation and interpretation of heritage (improved access, guided tours or transport), as well as job opportunities in restaurants, accommodation and other tourist services that require waiters, cooks or active tourism guides, for example. They recall that there is a "greater imbalance between the interior and the coast and between urban centers and the peripheral municipalities furthest from them" and they maintain that this evolution will mark the future of mountain towns.
