GREENPEACE has threatened to take legal action and stage major protests if the Spanish government pushes through plans to relax coastal planning regulations. The environmental group is angry following comments by Spain’s Environment Minister Miguel Arias Canete promising to make the Coastal Law ‘more compatible with economic growth’. The proposals would make it easier for [...]

SPAIN’S new leader Mariano Rajoy will have the ultimate say in whether to allow the prospecting for gas off the Costa del Sol. While locally PP bosses insist drilling off Mijas would be a disasterous idea for tourism, Madrid’s environment department has already given it the go ahead. Now, Rajoy will have to decide if [...]

RAJOY’S new government has announced a €700 million nuclear waste dump for a village near Madrid, provoking mixed reaction from residents and green groups. The dump, to be built in the small town of Villar de Canas, is expected to create 300 new jobs – an obvious blessing for its residents given Spain’s current 21 [...]

By Eloise Horsfield DEMOLITION of the Algarrobico hotel has been put on hold until the courts are certain that the licence to build it was invalid. The 411-bedroom hotel was constructed illegally on the beach inside the Cabo de Gata Natural Park and campaigns – including a sit-in by Greenpeace – have fought hard against it. [...]

A DOZEN Greenpeace activists have started squatting in Spain’s most controversial illegal building. By Wendy Williams The group are refusing to move until their demands are met to knock down the El Algarrobico, which was built on a beach inside Almeria’s Cabo de Gata Natural Park. The move comes exactly three years after the license [...]

GREENPEACE has slammed a proposal to prospect for gas on the Costa del Sol. The global pressure group has called for an immediate halt to the exploration project, which could cause ‘chronic contamination’ and a lasting impact on marine life. Spanish boss Sara Pizzinato insists that the scheme proposed off Mijas ‘poses a huge risk [...]

AN ex-boss of Greenpeace is spearheading a new green movement, set to shake up Spain’s political system by uniting all green thinkers under one banner. Juan Lopez de Uralde, former head of the campaign group’s Spanish division, has made the move into politics to offer ‘a strong voice’ to promote the eco-transformation of Europe’s economy [...]

GREENPEACE is petitioning the new mayor of Carboneras to take a stand over the controversial Algorrobico hotel. The pressure group hopes that the new Independent leader will take action over the illegal 411 room hotel that was built on a beach in a protected natural park area. It is pleading with Salvador Hernandez to correct [...]

ENVIRONMENTALISTS are up in arms over a new law that could allow golf courses and other urban developments in protected natural spaces. Both Greenpeace and Ecologistas en Accion fear that projects, like the controversial El Algarrobico hotel, could be legalized by the back-door with the new law. The Junta decree, which both groups have been [...]

AN in-depth look at the red tuna industry by Andrew Pearce. It has descended into a vicious, full-blown battle on the Seven Seas. Boats have been sunk and men have been maimed in the fervent struggles out in the deep-blue Mediterranean Sea. Yet the prize is not a bounty of gold, nor of territory, but [...]