HERRIBIDEAK,
Herribideak are roads and paths that the public has used for centuries and on which everyone has right of way. However, these paths are often subject to abuse, especially by the Forestry industry who also use these roads to gain access to land where pine and eucalyptus trees have been planted.
Recently we were informed of the destruction caused by heavy machinery used to transport the pine trees that have been cut down in the hills of Markaida. According to local people the company which was employed to transport the wood from the pine tree plantation used caterpillar forest machines. The use of these machines is forbidden on these roads and things were made worse by the fact that the work was carried out in rainy weather, something which is also forbidden.
To make matters worse permission is needed for such work to take place and apparently the town-hall has two weeks in which to give or deny permission for the work. If no reply is given, consent for the work is automatically given. In this case, Mungia town-hall did not reply so the work could go ahead. Not only that, when local people complained to the Town-Hall about the work they were told that only part of the herribide is the responsibility of the town-hall despite the fact that the land registry in Bilbao says that the whole of the herribidea is the Town-Hall`s competence. However, the registry office refuses to allow the pertinent document to be photocopied.
BBT will be in contact with legal experts to see what can be done to get the roads restored to their previous state of good use and ensure that Mungia Town-Hall assumes its part of responsibility in this rural destruction which is all too common in our mountains in the search for quick profits at the expense of beauty and biodiversity. Bizkaia Maite? Not really!!
