EL Palmar SOS - THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING!!!

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This is to tell you JUST WHY I’m starting the BLOG!

Why, as an experienced FILMMAKER, I decided that my next EPIC would tell of REAL-LIFE happenings in EL PALMAR -the modest strip of COASTAL ANDALUCIA where I live.

This is the story of ME and EL PALMAR!

Imagine a coastal town in warm, sunny, southern coastal Spain. With a difference. Its beaches and, often wild surf are of the Atlantic -not the Mediterranean Sea.

I’m talking miles of beach. Some days my only companions are cows grazing in the dunes and the only sound heard above that of the timeless ocean is the bray of a donkey in the distance. And I am at a tiny beach bar sipping a drink and spectating on the ends of the day and another glorious Atlantic sunset. This is El Palmar

Maybe, twenty years ago, time in this beautiful place just stopped. But I live here toady -and I love like it is.

There’s little in the way of piped convenience and few wires for telephone and air-conditioning…

The tracks I walk and the streets down which my old car trundles don’t compare with city highways. This is not a place that has been lost to the rush-hour of what passes for the accepted metrolpolitan lifestyle. El Palmar is different.

This unspoiled, place -off the beaten track- is a part of “secret-Spain”. A place known to caring locals and discerning holiday-makers who respect its heritage and echoes of simpler -less frantic- times..

But my town is threatened. Threatened by the prospect of high-rise, junk tourism of the kind that has reduced many of the former beautiful villages in Mediterranean Andalucia to charmless, brash cities.

Our local government, headed by the Mayor of Vejar de la Frontera, has backed plans to “develop” El Palmar. To transform my humble pueblo into a “more-of-the-same” Costa-del-Sol Mk II. There will be a massive golf resort with saunas, pools. Our beach will be home to endless fast-food joints and karaoke bars serving cheap drinks to stag-parties and under-age girls.

Investors will flock here. It will be easy money for the first few. The projects will be presented as far reaching and attention-grabbing. They will be backed by celebrities, with fast cars and faster money. The Junta de Andalucia will throw open the doors of consent as they grub with builders and bankers. Environmental and conservation concerns will be but a small voice in the the clamour for the funds of speculators and greedy locals. The politics of selfish greed and short-termism will out-shout the muted voices of common sense. That is what they plan. That is the threat to my town.

And then I was inspired.

Four months ago, Tatjana, a young woman from Barcelona wanted to say NO! No to all that was planned. She and a few friends started a group to protest. A “plataforma” that would express the voice of restraint and oppose the “super-project”.

The group now has 50,000 members and I’m one of them. We want to be heard around Spain -and wherever in the world, locals folk want to hold on to their sanity -and the last bit of warm, natural coastal beauty in their land.

El Palmar is my Paradise -and I will help save it. Working as Audio/Visual coordinator for the group, we will use intellect, honesty, a dash of humour and every skill of the creative mind to counter the destructive forces and of crass opportunism and greed.

We will present the case for protecting this last vestige of “Real Spain”.

All who will look and listen; all who might stop and think will have a part to play. Will YOU have a role in keeping El Palmar SPECIAL.

If YOU believe in sustainable, Eco-friendly tourism you’ll love this website! Check out the content here from time time.

Julian