On the afternoon of June 12, it snowed Arctic sunrise Around 300 fishing boats in Greenpeace’s Arusha estuary carried a large banner on the port side: “to protect the sea”, Another will have the phrase “” on the starboard side.Altri No”. The action was organized by the environmental group Greenpeace and the platform for the protection of the Ria de Arusha mobilized hundreds of artisanal fishermen, shellfish collectors and shellfish producers. At issue is Portuguese company Aldri’s intention to build a cellulose pulp factory in Galicia.
Manoel Santos, zoologist and coordinator of Greenpeace in Galicia, told PÚBLICO about the events: The ship entered the port of Vilagarcia de Arusa, sirens from “about 300 ships”. Arctic sunrise. Why is Arusha estuary? Europe is home to two of the best mollusc beds and coastal marine ecosystems. “The demonstration was held against the continued pollution of urban, industrial and phytosanitary effluents from agriculture and old mine lagoons. Plastic”, lists Manoel Santos, and highlights its most visible consequences Climate change.
The possibility of setting up a cellulose pulp factory in the headwaters of the Arusha estuary and its seafood banks has fishermen fearing “it will further pollute, change the temperature of the water and reduce its flow”. Refers to the Greenpeace coordinator.
Altri requested a license to capture 46 million liters of water per day from the Portodemouros reservoir, which is equivalent to the consumption of the entire province of Lugo, which has the third largest population in Galicia (324,267 in 2023). It applied for a license to discharge 30 million liters of water per day after using it in the cellulose pulp production process. But it “produces a lot of chemicals and the water temperature rises to 27 degrees Celsius” , Greenpeace chief warns. He says the licenses are for 75 years, but “the company has not presented a study of the potential and expected depletion of water resources” with projections of the effects of climate change over this period.
Manoel Santos emphasizes that the fishing industry “employs about 12,000 people in the Arusa estuary, but its indirect effects on employment are very high.” He describes the current situation of the fishing activity: “More than 44% of the licenses for seafood extraction are in Galicia, where about 1700 people are regularly involved in this activity and many are dedicated to floating fishing , artisanal fishing with mussels and small gear”, he reports.
Greenpeace
Faced with the dilemma, both Greenpeace and the Platform for the Protection of the Ria de Arusha are demanding concrete decisions from the Junta de Galicia on the issues of the estuary. Protesters said as they gathered at the fishing piers, Arusha estuary.
The escalation of protest actions led Altri’s CEO, José Soares de Pina, to travel to Galicia to provide the clarifications the company deemed necessary given the circumstances.
At a press conference held on June 3, and quoted in the daily Digital economy Published in Galicia, Soares Pina guaranteed that the altri factory “will not change the natural environment in Porodemouros and Palas”, where the construction of the project is planned, “so it will not do the same in the Arousa estuary”.
Reacting to the outcry provoked in the communities covered by the factory’s installation plan, Altri’s CEO admitted that “these plans generate different opinions.” Asked about the fact that the project has already received a large number of complaints (more than 23 thousand), Soares Pina considers. “There is no truth in many of the arguments raised in the press”, saying that there is ”A lot of misinformation.” But given the scale of the unconventional protests, he clarified: “We don’t invest in communities that don’t want them.”
Ultri’s new factory will use approximately 1200 million tons of eucalyptus wood, and the final annual production capacity will be 400 thousand tons of cellulose pulp and 200 thousand tons of LyocellIn addition to other by-products such as biomass. The plan predicts that its emissions into the atmosphere will include carbon dioxide CarbonCarbon oxides, nitrogen oxides, Carbon monoxide and particulates, i.e. a 75 meter high chimney will be installed as the only source of emissions.
More than 20,000 people attended the first demonstration against the project at the Palas de Re (Lugo) on 26 May. The maritime demonstration on June 12 was described as historic by all the press.
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