Restoring the riverside in Rojales
A PROJECT to create a riverside woodland in Rojales is being carried out by the town hall and the south east naturalists’ association (ANSE).
The objective is for it to become a habitat for birds and other species that will help to conserve their populations, explained heritage councillor Inmaculada Chazarra.
The chosen location is a strip of land to the east of the town centre along the northern edge of the River Segura, from the grove by the fiesta area as far as the natural outlet for rainwater at La Bernada. This is the second project of this type in this council-owned area, which is also where the urban allotments are located, said the councillor. With help from heavy machinery to prepare the land, ANSE are planting 200 riverbank trees, ‘many of them quite large ones’.
The species include field elm, silver poplar, elderberry and narrow-leafed ash, amongst others that were chosen to improve the environmental condition of the land.
The planation has been provided with a drip irrigation system to ensure that the trees grow quickly, until their roots reach down to the phreatic level. Additional maintenance tasks to ensure that the wood develops properly will be carried out for the next two years.
Riverside woodlands have virtually disappeared from the Vega Baja area, but they bring countless environmental and aesthetic benefits for society, which include absorbing greenhouse gases, purifying the water, and reducing the temperature of the area and the water with the shade they provide, explained Sra Chazarra.
The project is part of an initiative by the bottled water brand Font Vella, called Naturaqua2000, which aims to restore biodiversity along the River Segura by ecological restoration and progressive land stewardship conservation strategies.
GERMAN supermarket company ALDI opened its first store in San Fulgencio on Monday, at Calle Mar Tirreno, 3, just off the N-332 in La Marina urbanisation.
The shop covers 1,250 square metres and has employed a workforce of 14 people. This brings the total number of Aldi supermarkets in Alicante province to 34; only Madrid and Barcelona have more. The company’s head of expansion, Vicent Claramunt said their objective is to ‘be increasingly close to our customers and we hope to offer the people of San Fulgencio a new option for comfortable, simple and economical shopping’. Customers can find approximately 2,000 different products, 86% of which are ALDI’s own brands and ‘made to high quality standards’. He noted that they trust suppliers from the Valencia region, who make up 10% of the total from all over Spain, including suppliers from Alicante province, particularly for fruit and vegetables. The store has energy efficient LED lighting and a domotics system, which prevents goods from becoming spoiled by power cuts and improves the workings of the air conditioning and the lighting. It is open Monday to Saturday from 09.00 to 21.30 and is following all the recommendations and protocols of the health authorities to protect their customers and employees.