More than 400 schoolchildren from Benidorm visit Racó de l'Infern Quarry to commemorate World Environment Day

More than 400 schoolchildren from ten Kindergarten and Primary schools in Benidorm celebrated World Environment Day this Wednesday, June 5, by visiting a natural space that is in the process of regeneration and recovery: Racó de l' Quarry Infern, located in Serra Gelada Natural Park and which until very recently represented “a bite” in this mountain range due to human action for decades. The boys and girls who participated in this visit have been able to learn first-hand about the work that is being carried out in this area for its environmental and landscape recovery, after which the quarry will become part of the municipal land heritage and will be a new park.

The mayor of the city, Toni Pérez, together with the councillors of Environment and Education, Mónica Gómez and Maite Moreno, as well as other members of the municipal Corporation, have accompanied the schoolchildren on this visit and have shared with them some impressions about the area. Representatives of TM Grupo Inmobiliario and Grupo Bertolín, responsible for the action, also participated in this event.

“We are recovering the damage that human action did seven decades ago in this space with the contribution of aggregates from other partial plans in Benidorm,” said the mayor. Specifically, the plot on which the athletics track is built, in the Partial Plan 2/1 Poniente, explained Toni Pérez, who has defined this action as “an example of public-private collaboration.” The first mayor has also highlighted that the recovery of this space of just over 60,000 square meters is “a unique project, a project of the city and for the city, and the best space to celebrate World Environment Day today. ”.

In addition to learning about this space and how it is being recovered, the 5th and 6th-grade students who participated in this activity received a short talk about the Serra Gelada Natural Park and its particularities, including the fact that it is the only Maritime-terrestrial natural park of the Community. They have also received information about the native fauna and flora and the options our city offers to promote selective waste collection, becoming the students protagonists in the mobile Ecopark truck, which has moved there to make this service known to schoolchildren.

The schools that have participated in this initiative are the CEIP La Cala, El Murtal, Miguel Hernández, Bautista Lledó, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Leonor Canalejas, Gabriel Miró, Els Tolls and Puig Campana, as well as the private centre Lope de Vega.

Finally, the mayor has announced that, once the regeneration of the area is completed, this space will be converted into a new large public park, Parc del Racó de l'Infern, so that it can be enjoyed by citizens as has already been done with the natural spaces of Séquia Mare and El Moralet.

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What has the regeneration consisted of?

To carry out this regeneration, nearly 180,000 cubic meters of inert materials have been poured for the morphological restoration of the hole in the old quarry, which results in an elevation of the land by about 40 meters in height. Or, in other words, what would be a twelve-story building, as explained by those responsible for this work.

Grupo Bertonlín and TM have stated that it will be completed before the start of summer, the soil will be prepared for reforestation and a drainage network will be built to avoid washing away. Then, in autumn, revegetation will be carried out, which will be done with native trees and shrubs of which there are still specimens in the area, such as pines (1,005 specimens), olive trees (862), carob trees (718), palmetto, black hawthorn, mastic and rosemary. In total, 2,585 new trees and about 3,650 shrubs.

If everything goes according to schedule, the performance will be finished by Christmas.