Living on the costa

The Marbella Arboretum Foundation has suffered a robbery and recorded material damage for an estimated value of about 9,000 euros, so it is asking for help to refloat the environmental education project in donations or tools in kind, as highlighted by the president of the group, Alejandro Orioli.

The events took place in the early Monday morningwhich have been reported to the National Police, affecting various areas of a park that totals 2.7 hectares located on Calle Granado de Marbella, in the Huerta del Prado urbanization, where the group develops various environmental education projects.

As detailed, the park has registered various damages and “greenhouses, tool sheds, machine rooms, chicken coops, fencing, orchards have been loaded” or various fruit trees. Specifically, he pointed out that the thieves have taken “60 soletas”, each valued at about 20 euros, “shovels, pruning shears, brushcutters, chainsaws or rakes”, tools that the group has taken more than a decade to buy , has regretted.

To this he has added a system called “electric shepherds”, which serves to scare away wild boars as a “fence”, which has been destroyed and “we no longer have that protection”, valued at “almost 3,000 euros”. In addition, they have taken “5 solar panels, hand cheeks, “all the aromatic, horticultural, and edible plants” valued at about 700 euros, or kitchen utensils “such as carboys or cutlery that they use in the craft market that the foundation celebrates every month, just as they have broken “the fence in two or three places.”

For his part, another of the project managers, Ivo Oriolihas assessed that at least “one or two people” could have acted in the robbery, which “They have entered the compound breaking the fence that borders the place” and “different materials have been taken.”

“The foundation has been stolen materials for a lot of moneyor” that they left “people as their last legacy to us”, lamented the representative of the Arboretum, who has added “the damage” caused to the park”, such as the one suffered in an “electric glass”, which, according to his opinion, will be used to “sell it as scrap”. To this he has added “a couple of thefts of personal belongings of the people who are here.”

In addition, it has indicated that the “seedbeds” areawith autochthonous seeds in “more accessible” spaces, which “were opened and thrown away”, something that “does not make any sense”.

Material, symbolic and emotional damages

Thus, it has valued not only the registered material damage, but also the “symbolic and emotional”, since he has highlighted that the tools have been donated “by people who wanted to help” the Utopia de huertos and Arboretum projects, the latter based on an “environmental resource center”.

As he recalled, the area in which the project is located “it was an illegal dumpin which many people from the neighborhood, from Marbella and from other parts helped us clean and heal and remove vandalism from the place” and for which we have been working for more than 10 years.

As he pointed out, the collective develops environmental education work on a plot located in Marbella “a peri-urban phase, between the mountains and the city”, in a park that has an area of ​​”2.7 hectares of arable land where the orchards are”, which represents more than one hectare. The rest are “planted, reforested areas and another where there were small trees that were growing.”

For this reason, the foundation asks for help to “replace the material damage and for the park to flourish again”, so donations can be made to the Fundación Arboretum account ES50 1491 0001 2930 0006 8260, in the entity Triodos Bank. Besides, orioli He has indicated that they will produce “a list of tools that can be replaced so that they can be donated in kind and continue working.”