It was meant to be a factory fit for the future.
Using wood from the eucalyptus forests that blanket this part of Galicia, the plant would produce pulp and lyocell, a biodegradable fabric whose popularity is growing. Executives promised thousands of jobs in a region whose villages have steadily emptied, plazas once busy now quiet.
Instead, the arrival of the Portuguese pulp producer Altri (along with its minority partner Greenalia, a Galician energy firm) has sparked fierce opposition.
Why We Wrote This
Industry or environment? Communities across Europe are struggling to decide which matters more. The efforts to launch a pulp factory in Galicia, Spain, may suggest which priority will win out – or if there’s a middle ground to be found.
The “Altri Non” movement, Galician for “No to Altri,” warns the pulp mill would harm the local environment and encourage more eucalyptus plantations. Eucalyptus, popularized decades ago for timber, now covers nearly a third of Galicia’s forests and has been blamed for squeezing out native species and fueling wildfires.
Proponents frame the project as a lifeline. Without new industries, they say, small towns will keep hollowing out until little remains.
The clash reflects a wider European debate. As Europe works to breathe life back into its industrial sector, communities are increasingly wary of the environmental price – even for projects branded as “green.”
For both sides, the issue has morphed into a matter of survival.
Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor
An opportunity? Or a danger?
In Palas de Rei, the proposed site for the factory, pilgrims traveling the Camino de Santiago pass balconies draped with banners: “No to the Altri pulp mill, out with contamination.”
The town’s mayor, Pablo Taboada, pays the signs no more heed than the backpackers do. He calls the Altri project the opportunity of a generation in a region where “all industrial projects, unfortunately, are on the rocks.”
Palas de Rei, home to just over 3,000 people, has full employment. But neighboring villages are shrinking; Galicia’s rural population fell by 17% between 1996 and 2020. Company materials say the business will create 500 direct and 2,000 indirect jobs, though some independent estimates are lower.
“If it is not built here, it is going to be built somewhere else,” says Mr. Taboada. “What now is an opportunity will become a necessity.”
The plant would produce 400,000 tons of fiber annually, requiring up to 46 million liters (over 12 million gallons) of water a day. Much of that water would be treated and returned to the Ulla River. Environmentalists warn warmer, possibly contaminated water could harm the Arousa estuary, a major source of Spain’s shellfish.
The project would also consume 1.2 million tons of eucalyptus each year. Galicia has a moratorium on planting eucalyptus, but locals say it often goes unenforced – and that more eucalyptus is likely to be planted if the project is approved.
“All our native flora, our trees, everything will disappear,” says Chusa Expósito, whose family home sits just over a mile from the Altri site.
Ms. Expósito is one of the founders of Milhulloa, which sells local medicinal plants. She and other small-business owners say they are building a regional economy that does not rely on big industrial projects.
“That type of industry has no place here,” says Suso Santiso, who runs an inn in the center of town. “Industry is necessary, but it should be industry that is in line with what we value.”
Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor
More than 100,000 people protested the pulp mill in Santiago de Compostela in December, according to organizers, with demonstrations continuing since then. Over 100 boats sailed down the Ulla River in protest in May.
“It is a clear example of a development model that is already being abandoned all over the world,” Spain’s minister of labor and social economy, Yolanda Díaz, told the Monitor after a recent protest in Madrid. “Europe has to pay attention.”
Other European leaders see a different urgency. In Italy, where protesters are fighting a planned bridge linking Sicily to the mainland, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has prioritized industry over environment.
“In a desert there is nothing green,” she said in Rome in May, reports Reuters. “Before anything else, we must fight the desertification of European industry.”
Europe lost 240,000 jobs to Chinese competition in manufacturing between 2015 and 2022, according to the European Central Bank.
The European Union sees bio-based materials – such as wood-based fibers – as central to its Green Deal industrial strategy, part of a broader push to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and imports through locally rooted industries.
The Altri project has applied for €250 million (about $290 million) from the NextGenerationEU initiative, sparking sharp criticism from opponents who point out that those funds should not be used to harm the environment.
“We need a bit of life”
In a village near Palas de Rei, the only open business is a bar where two older men sip sodas. Neither is willing to comment. “Everyone knows each other here, and no one wants problems,” says the bartender.
Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor
Others who speak are not sure where to stand.
“Those against the project say we will be killed by contamination,” says Manuel Hilario García Álvarez, a retiree who moved back to his hometown. “Those in favor say if Altri doesn’t come, this region will die.”
The factory cleared its environmental review in March and is awaiting final government approval.
Mr. García Álvarez looks out at the near-empty main street. “This is almost abandoned. We need a bit of life.”
What that means depends on whom you ask.
Maria Soledad González, a physiotherapist who moved to Palas de Rei for the slower pace and connection to nature, says the province should lead “in environmentalism, in health, in a good life.”
If nothing else, she adds, the Altri debate has brought the community one thing: “It is bringing us together and making us realize what we have here.”
