Thousands of people demonstrate in Pontevedra to protest the 'environmental bomb' of both Ence's factory in the Pontevedra estuary and the proposed cellulose plant that Altri is planning in Palas de Rei

June 2, 2025 (CE Noticias Financieras) –

Thousands of people demonstrated this Sunday in Pontevedra to show their rejection of the "environmental bomb" that the Ence factory in the Pontevedra estuary and the macrocellulose that Altri is planning in Palas de Rei (Lugo) represent.

Under the slogan "Nin Ence na ría, nin Altri na Ulloa", this march, which is held annually against Ence's industrial project in Pontevedra , became this year a joint claim against two cellulose plants that create, according to the promoters, "shared wounds".

The demonstrators, as explained by the president of the Asociación Pola Defensa da Ría de Pontevedra (APDR), Antón Masa, have asked that this "unity of action" be maintained until these two industrial projects "are history".

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"We want to say louder than ever that we do not want another cellulose in Galicia," added the president of the Ulloa Viva platform, Pilar Naveira , who has demanded that the Galician community be a "cellulose-free" region, because it is an "outdated" economic model.

The Pontevedra estuary, according to Naveira, "was sacrificed" decades ago with the installation of the Ence pulp mill and warned that they will not allow "that history to repeat itself" in the region of A Ulloa with a macro cellulose "without social consensus or environmental guarantees".

The environmentalist leader has reiterated that the Ulla River "is not an industrial sewer", so she has demanded the Xunta de Galicia to "backtrack, recalculate and rectify" in relation to its support for Altri, "putting themselves at the height of the tide of Galician dignity that, once again, is speaking".

The organizing groups have announced that they will continue "in the streets, in the courts and wherever necessary" to prevent this "nonsense" and defend a "dignified" sustainable future for A Ulloa and for all Galicia.

"No company, no matter how much political approval it has from the Xunta, deserves to ruin a river and a paradise such as the Ulla River and the Arousa estuary," added the spokesman for the Association for the Defense of the Arousa Estuary (PDRA), Alfredo Otero .

This demonstration, which has departed from the avenues of Pontevedra and Marín and concluded in front of the Ence industrial complex in Lourizán, has had the support of groups such as Greenpeace, Ecologists in Action, Adega, No to the Touro Mine , Unións Agrarias, CIG or CUT.

The mobilization was also attended by the national spokesperson of the BNG, Ana Pontón; the mayor of Pontevedra , Miguel Ángel Fernández Lores ; the senator of the BNG, Carme da Silva ; or socialist leaders such as the former deputy Guillermo Meijón or the local leader of Pontevedra , Iván Puentes .

Pontón has claimed that what they are asking Mr. Rueda is "to listen to the clamor that exists in Galicia for Ence to leave the Pontevedra estuary and avoid the environmental bomb that Altri would be in the heart of Galicia".

The leader of the BNG has demanded for Galicia "industry for the future and sustainable employment that takes care of our environment" and not that the Galician community is the place "in which companies that do not even want to settle in Portugal ".

For Pontón, what the Galician Government is demonstrating is that "it is not capable of attracting innovative and sustainable projects", while denouncing that "the only thing they offer are the macrocellulosas of the twentieth century".