If the Portuguese company Altri goes ahead with its project to install a macrocellulose plant in Palas de Rei (A Ulloa, Lugo), it will produce a “serious fracture in the territory” and introduce a high degree of uncertainty about the future evolution of the territory and its viability and recomposition. This is the main conclusion of the severe report made public this Thursday, September 5, by the Consello da Cultura Galega, an advisory body of the Xunta de Galicia. It is 181 pages prepared by 10 scientists and experts who address the economic, environmental and cultural consequences of the project. Its result is “energetic and rigorous”, in the words of the president of the institution, Rosario Álvarez.
The document, prepared on the initiative of the Council itself – the Galician government usually asks for its opinion, but this time it did not do so – contradicts the technical studies that Alfonso Rueda’s executive has leaked to the press in recent weeks. “The decision to establish a textile fibre factory does not respond to a territorial plan or an industrial plan that have been evaluated from an environmental point of view,” said Teresa Nieto, architect, head of the Xunta and, with Eduardo Corbelle, coordinator of the text, “but to a strategic industrial plan” decided without any debate other than the parliamentary debate. “And it is adopted for reasons that go beyond the territory where it is going to be implemented,” he added. A historic demonstration in Palas de Rei last May made visible the opposition of a significant part of the inhabitants to the Altri projects supported by Rueda and the Popular Party.
But in addition, this strategic industrial plan, the report specifies, is based on data that the analysis carried out from the Portuguese company’s file does not confirm. The 421 direct jobs promised by Altri in the first phase of implementation will be, it estimates, between 161 and 281. “The indirect impacts will only affect companies located outside Galicia,” it adds, before offering precise figures: “They have a very low impact on the Galician economy, 0.30 euros per euro produced, and only 25% in the areas of influence of the factory”, which are the regions of A Ulloa (Lugo), Terra de Melide and Arzúa (A Coruña). and Deza (Pontevedra). The socio-economic study of Altri, denounces the Consello da Cultura, only refers to the first period, 2025-2030. It does not provide projections, commitments, timelines or funding for the second phase of industry implementation.
The environmental effects are another aspect studied by the team that wrote the report. The location chosen by the company, with the approval of the Xunta, is located “directly in one of the most unique and interesting geodaphic and ecological habitats in Galicia”. According to Eduardo Corbelle, it is one of the areas with the greatest presence of endangered plant species. According to these experts, the consumption of water, extracted from the Ulla River at a relatively short distance from its source, necessary for the operation of the pasture, does not correspond to what was anticipated by Altri either. “Their accounts are legitimate but biased for three reasons,” Corbelle explains, “they use monthly average values and not daily, they talk about the water they return to the canal but not the total they withdraw from the river and they do not take into account the downward trend in flow in this basin over the last 30 years. This last circumstance is due, according to him, to climate change and the increase in forest cover.
Eucalyptus consumption
The newspaper Progress published on Wednesday the conclusions of a study by the Galician Government – Rueda’s cabinet has not made them public – according to which macrocellulose would not require more eucalyptus than there is already in Galicia. “It is not reasonable to think that,” said Corbelle, a professor of agroforestry engineering, who criticized the Galician Forest Industry Agency, dependent on the Xunta, for having an accounting based on the first phase of the plan and not on the two it was designed to consist of. “It will not consume 1.2 million cubic meters, but 2.4. In Galicia, about five million are used each year,” he explained. He sees only two possibilities: importing eucalyptus from South America or increasing the area occupied by this species in the community between 80,000 and 190,000 hectares. There are currently 409,000. The monoculture of eucalyptus, dominant in several Galician regions, is debated by environmentalists, farmers and political organizations due to its social, natural or economic effects. So much so that the government of Núñez Feijóo declared a moratorium on plantations in 2021.
The coordinators of the report of the Consello da Cultura Galega, an organization whose creation includes the Statute of Autonomy of the community, have not explained the reasons why its conclusions are opposed to those of the technical studies of the Xunta that are made known in the press. “It is not enough to compare the conclusions, without knowing the procedures, from which data are drawn and what types of analyses,” said Teresa Nieto. Regarding the receptiveness of the Galician government to the document, the president of the institution, Rosario Álvarez, chose the diplomatic route. “Many of our reports do not receive an immediate response, but over time they have consequences,” he said.
Just one day before the presentation of the document, Sumar MEP Estrella Galán asked the European Commission to suspend the Altri project to install macrocellulose in Palas de Rei.
