The plenary session of the Calp City Council has approved with the votes in favor of the government team (Somos Calpe, PSOE and Compromís) and the abstention of the opposition (PP and Defendamos Calpe) the urban-forest mapping of the municipality, a requirement demanded by a legislative decree of the Generalitat in order to prevent forest fires.
The cartography "establishes a security strip between the urban areas and the forest space" in the municipality of Calp, according to the councilor spokesperson for Somos Calpe and councilor for Urban Planning, Juan Manuel del Pino "to prevent fires or, in the event that they occur, prevent their spread."
Legislative Decree 1/2021 of June 18 of the Consell establishes that the town councils of municipalities with forest lands must identify and cartographically delimit any urbanization, population center, building or facility susceptible to risk of forest fire due to being located on forest lands. or in an area of forest influence. The standard also states that in said cartography a minimum protection perimeter strip of 30 meters wide must be delimited.
The spokesperson for Defendamos Calpe, Paco Quiles, demanded that the government team explain to citizens what the approval of this cartography entails and criticized that it forces a 30-meter strip to be made by cutting down trees. «We are going to abstain because it is outrageous. We have to explain to people everything that has to be cut down, we have to explain what is going to happen," he pointed out. Likewise, he indicated that "the owners of the population centers or communities of owners that border the forest masses have to take charge of this, they have to pay for it, that must be said" and added that the law establishes a period of six months to carry out the planned actions.
For his part, the spokesman for the Popular Party, César Sánchez, expressed the support of his municipal group for all the proposals and investments of the governing team in the fight against forest fires, a "capital and extremely important issue, especially the Oltà area, that border with Benissa, which is a hot area and especially with the drought situation that we are experiencing." However, he pointed out that, as the point was going to be approved with the votes of the governing team, the popular municipal group would abstain in order to continue the position it has held since the beginning of the legislature.
The spokesperson for the government team, Ximo Perles, and spokesman for Compromís denied Quiles and explained that the 30 meters of strip that must be created on the perimeter between urban and forest areas will be carried out in accordance with the new forestry provisions. which allows the planting of species that are not as flammable as pine trees or vines. "The new rules do not say that logging should be done to create the zone of discontinuity between urban land and the forest mass, but rather they allow there to be firebreaks with dryland cultivation," said Perles.
Juan Manuel del Pino pointed out that it is an "ambitious" plan and recognized the difficulty of putting it into practice, although he added along the lines of Ximo Perles: "there are ways to approach the issue such as repopulating with species that are not so dangerous in the spread of the fire". And addressing the spokesperson for Defendamos Calpe he stated: "it is a legislative decree that is above you, me and everyone present, we only have to abide by it and comply with what the law says."
