Imogen Calderwood
IN the largest action that Greenpeace has ever taken in Spain, nearly 100 activists from the non-governmental organisation daubed the hotel’s façade with black paint.
The activists painted an enormous black circle, with an area of 8,000 square metres, with its message ‘Illegal hotel’ spelled out in giant white letters.
Greenpeace describes the hotel as ‘the black spot on the Spanish coast’, a description that the NGO’s paintwork has made literal.
In their sixth Algarrobico demonstration, Greenpeace activists swarmed into the 21-storey unfinished building in the Cabo de Gata Nature Park in the early hours of Sunday morning.
They clutched banners that made their objective very clear, demanding ‘Demolition, NOW!’
Greenpeace has denounced the Junta for its indifference to the hotel, claiming the it is hiding behind the legal process in order to delay the demolition of the building.
They are demanding that the Junta applies the ‘Coastal natural heritage and biodiversity act’, that the NGO claims would allow the immediate demolition of the hotel.
Controversy around the hotel has rumbled on for nearly a decade, in what the Junta’s Environmental minister described as a ‘judicial tangle’.
Andalucia’s high court (TSJA) last month ruled that the land on which the unsightly hotel was built belongs to the Junta, just weeks after ruling it belonged to the local municipality of Carboneras.
The shock decision reversal was prompted when six European environmental agencies – including Greenpeace and Ecologistas en Accion – condemned the TSJA’s previous ruling.
In an Olive Press poll, it was revealed that more than 80% of readers agree that the Algarrobico is an eyesore that should be torn down immediately.
