Hundreds of people have demonstrated at the gates of the Courts of Castilla y León to demand the resignation of the president of the Board, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, of the Minister of the Environment, Juan Carlos Suárez-Quiñones and the Director General of Natural Heritage and Forest Policy, José Ángel Arranz Sanz. From more than an hour before the beginning of the appearance of Mañueco in the Cortes, under the motto 'Mala management. Quiñones resignation! 'Have demanded solutions and measures for the forest policy of the community.
This demonstration has been convened by groups, neighborhood associations, unions and political parties throughout Castilla y León. It is one of the numerous concentrations that have happened in recent days by different provinces of the community, as a sign of citizen protest for the forest policy of the Junta de Castilla y León.
The concentration, which have starred forest firefighters and environmental agents, which have hit the ground with their blades and have burned straw and tires and have made roaming chain without chain to represent the situations that live daily, a bonfire in which they have also burned posters with the face of Mañueco and Quiñones. Some of the posters shown prayed 'quiñones, the waste is you', 'mismanagement, quiñones resignation' or 'Minister of the Environment Resignation'.
Attendees have kept a minute of silence for the four fatalities – the Board excludes one of them – from this wave of fire in the community. The calls have read a manifesto in which they have denounced the abandonment of the rural environment, the privatization of the operation, have claimed resignations and have maintained a minute of silence in memory of the four people killed in the extinction of fires and those affected by the flames.
Lack of investment and precariousness
The union organizations have also taken stock of the fire extinction device: the Vice -Secretary of Autonomous Administration of UGT Public Services Cyl Carlos Arenas, has accused the Board of “not complying one hundred percent” the agreements signed in the social dialogue after the fires of 2022 and has requested “completely professionalizing” the operation and that it is public.
Francisco Javier García, federal head of Forest Firefighters of UGT, has influenced “fires, lack of investment and precariousness kill” and has insisted that extinction cannot be a private business.
For its part, the environmental agent and delegate of CSIF Sara Mateos has asserted that “the management that has been made of forest fires is a shame,” he insisted on the resignations of Quiñones and Arranza because “they are incompetent”, as well as a call to the citizens of the affected areas so that they are unan.
For his part, José Ramón Casado, an environmental agent and delegate of CCOO, has stressed that the support of units of other autonomies indicates that the device of Castilla y León does not “is enough” and has affirmed that it is necessary that the operation be active all year and more expense in prevention.
Esú School, Apamcyl, has regretted that the Castilian and Leon operation “is one of the most privatized in Spain” and has requested a greater budget for prevention, which will “force to spend ten times” in the extinction of the flames.
