Public pathway protest march
Trails have been ‘usurped’ by landowners in many areas
A MARCH through the Sierra Escalona is being held on Sunday (April 3) to demand public access to traditional livestock trails and public paths.
It is part of a national campaign organised by the Iberian platform for public pathways, the Spanish federation of mountain sports and climbing, and Ecologistas en Acción.
This local march has been planned by the Arcángel residents’ association of San Miguel de Salinas and the friends of the Sierra Escalona (ASE).
They explained that livestock trails link pastures so shepherds and ranchers can take their herds to the best feed.
Nationwide they stretch to a total 125,000 kilometres, making up 1% of the land in the country – and legally they are owned by regional governments, which makes them unique in Europe.
Public rural pathways are owned by town halls and facilitate communication with neighbouring municipalities, small residential areas and farms. These trails and
paths also function as ecological corridors and territorial connections for hikers and naturalists.
However, owners of land next to them have often appropriated their use, enabled by the ‘apathy, neglect and inaction of local and regional public administrations’, according to the associations.
“Gates, fences, walls and all sorts of constructions have occupied, usurped and blocked the public from using and enjoying these public spaces,” they lament.
ASE and Arcángel associations have already written
to the regional government in Valencia calling for these trails and paths to be protected as green infrastructure, and for the mapping of the Sierra Escalona trail to be completed, after it was finally started last July but then suspended.
They are also calling on San Miguel town hall to create an inventory of local public pathways.
The march sets off from the Plaza de la Iglesia at 10.30 and will cover part of one of the 11 trails through the protected landscape of the sierra.