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Opinion of Mario Vidal (Gent de Dénia): «Prevention, gentlemen, prevention»

August 18 from 2022 - 09: 38

I would like to begin these lines by remembering all the neighbors who are unfortunately going through a tragic situation, due to the burning of their properties, plots, houses and animals, and what is worse, the uncertainty after the evictions, to see what you are going to find. I don't want to think how hard it is to start over.

This is not the time to look for those responsible or guilty, it is the time to realize that policies do not work and, in fact, those phrases that say "You have to live with fire" or "You have to live with floods", because they consider natural phenomena Well, no, they are not shared.

It is demonstrated once again that the lack of cleaning of riverbeds, ravines, hillsides, trees, the lack of firebreaks, the lack of foresight of what can happen, well this happens, that there are many victims, many people lose their most precious belongings , and many people change their lives.

We suffer from policies of minimum effort, they do not allow goats and animals to graze naturally on a mountain that some appropriate as if it were theirs (it belongs to everyone, not to those who impose their law). They do not allow the owners to clean ravines, in their case imposing fines, and they do not realize that no one better than the owners of agricultural land, ranchers and hunters keep the ecosystems clean and fit.

When they say that you have to let nature take its course, caring little about the damage, anger fills my body. I don't understand, it doesn't fit in my mind that animals want or should live with fire, nor, as ecologists as they are, allow plants to burn. I think that is not being an environmentalist, that is being selfish.

At least in fire protocol, the first thing is to save lives (thank goodness), but I want to remember that many lives end when you lose everything. And it is not worth it for me to say that nature has been damaged by the hand of man for having a house and land, in other cases yes, but I remember that we all live in houses and many people who live in the countryside have land, plantations, animals and Apart from being their livelihood, these people are much more ecologists than the “armchair ecologists”, who, since they do not have property and it is their livelihood, do not lose anything, they live on a salary, but impose laws on the rest of mortals.

It is time to change, to change policies, to change protocols, to do, in short to do, to clean channels, clear brush, build firebreaks, look for prevention, it is clear that it is cheaper than starting a seaplane at €6000 an hour, or mobilizing the EMU, It is time to find that this expense is allocated to cleaning, to maintain and clean.

In a plenary session in December I was branded as crazy for requesting that riverbeds and ravines be cleaned before the summer, that these were going to be wicks that could hardly be turned off. Today, unfortunately, the fire has spread freely through channels and ravines that are difficult to access and has come to communicate areas that take a long time to reach by vehicle, a pity that we still have that thought.

The same thing happens with floods, if the channels are dirty, the water is retained and the level rises, flooding the plots (rural or urban) that are on its side, on the other hand, when the water runs through the channel, it can more flow, which is true that it goes faster but that if it drains well is not a problem, you have to give the water an outlet, clean channels, clear brush, the same as for fire. Wild nature gives nothing but problems, let us remember that October 9, 2007 when the dirt and reeds themselves knocked down the bridge in Beniarbeig, it was shown that if the Girona riverbed had been clean it would not have happened, in fact they put anti-root plastics so that the reeds did not emerge, and that the water flowed quickly but without gathering dirt.

Serve this misfortune, as it happens so many other times, so that we reflect on the policies that we apply, and make prevention plans, for the good of all.

Comments
  1. Carles Gual says:

    In addition, the UME does not put out the fires for free, it charges a lot of money from the autonomies for it.

    • Luis says:

      Better to spend public money on that than not waste it on celebrations, sterile beach bars and plugged-in family members.

  2. Lesley Callow says:

    An excellent article and I agree with everything you say. Prevention is much better than cure.

  3. Luis says:

    “…This misfortune serves, as it happens so many other times, so that we reflect on the policies that we apply, and make prevention plans, for the good of all…”

    Serve this misfortune, as happens so many other times, so that we do not reflect and continue doing the same as always, nothing.
    Because it is precisely nothing that they are going to do for the good of a few.


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