They shouldn't make us choose between the train and saving the Marjal

There are many public campaigns promoting local produce, both for farmers and for the value of the land. Just this week, the Catalan government unveiled the logo for local produce. There's a public discourse in favor of zero kilometers, for the countryside, and for the landscape, but reality shows that it's not moving in that direction.

Farmers face many problems getting by. They complain of excessive bureaucracy, endless procedures, aid that never arrives, and, in recent years, of speculative projects that, under the pretext of obtaining clean energy, are filling the countryside with solar panels. Iron structures that leave the land unproductive and destroy the landscape.

And now, a new project threatens the heart of the Marjal de sa Pobla. In this case, it's not solar panels, but a train to Puerto de Alcudia. Once again, its promoters, in this case the Catalan government, are clinging firmly to the idea of public transport. Who could be against it?

No one should be against public transport. But they should be against infrastructure that destroys fertile land, razing the farms of small producers and families who have defended the countryside and the territory for generations, who love it and, in some cases and against all odds, still live there.

Therefore, if the government wants to reach Puerto de Alcúdia by train, it must find a way to do so without punishing those who protect the land. They shouldn't make us choose between public transport and saving the Marjal. Furthermore, there are older projects that weren't as aggressive and that, according to witnesses who can be read in this weekly and according to what some experts admitted years ago, were discarded due to "untouchable" owners. The public and general interest must come before anything else. In Mallorca and the Balearic Islands, the countryside cannot be just a slogan; it must be defended every day without any further aggression. We've already had too many exceptions.

Returning to the parallel with solar panels, what cannot happen is for the government to go along with reality and the interests of large companies instead of setting a standard. The failure to force solarization in degraded areas, parking lots, and industrial estates, because it's more expensive for investors, cannot be repeated in the case of La Marjal. Public authorities must protect what is history, tradition, and what also preserves the little agriculture that remains on the islands.

The report analyzing the situation also questions why one billion is suddenly being invested in two new lines and why the technical changes to add more frequencies to the existing ones cannot be made, where people are literally packed in like sardines. Or finishing the Levante train, a collective shame in a case where we've all already paid for the expropriations.