“Not mine”. It is the cry of an entire region in the northeast of Segovia on a war footing to prevent what are now farmlands from becoming a open pit mine. Marisa Moro, from the citizen platform that rejects the project, explained to laSexta that this exploitation would be used to “extract mineral quartz that will be taken to Norway and other countries outside the European community.” “Nothing remains in Spain,” she says.
The project would affect six municipalities –Barbolla, Sotillo, Castillejo, Cerezo de Arriba, Cerezo de Abajo and Duruelo- and the mine, denounced the neighbors, would come just 40 meters from their houses. Towns whose inhabitants have now demonstrated together against the mine, after nearly a month collecting signatures to present allegations to the project.
Bernardino Tanarro, a resident of Cerezo de Arriba, denounces that they found out “because someone saw the project in the Official Gazette of the Junta de Castilla y León.” “Not even the mayors were informed,” he reproached. “They throw us out and on top of that they pay us two pesetasit’s unfortunate,” complains Jesús San Juan, a farmer and rancher.
“Where do I take my cows to graze now?” asks a farmer. “We want to continue living in our villages, calm, breathing fresh air“claimed another protester.
At the moment it is only a proposal, but to see the light the mine would cover an area of more than 2,700 hectares of which at least 1,600 will be exploitable. “An equivalent to 2,000 soccer fields,” illustrates Bernardino, while Marisa Moro warns about the consequences: “Farmers cannot cultivate and ranchers have to take their cattle. We lose people, we lose wealth“, resume.
In this sense, ecologists warn that, despite what the mining company says, the land would be seriously damaged: “Take away that cloak that covers it, that living cloak, it would mean his death and, therefore, ours”, warns María José Gallego, from Ecologistas en Acción. “Our agricultural and livestock farms are not going to be the same again, no matter how much they tell us,” agrees San Juan, a member of the Union of Peasants of Castilla y León (UCCL).
A situation in which the neighbors warn that they will raise their protest as many times as necessary.