The question is, not only does Nerja need a golf course, but also is it environmentally viable?

But let’s start at the beginning: 16 months after Nerja Town Hall approved the urban-development project the ponderous wheels of bureacratic process continues to trundle forward; the Junta de Andalucía, has now subjected the project that will affect 200 hectares of land in Maro to public inspection.

Sociedad Azucarera Larios SL wants to build an 18-hole, golf course, 596 high-end dwellings, luxury hotels and commercial areas. Two years ago, when the project first emerged, there were 84 extra dwellings contemplated but they have since been axed.

The golf course will include a practice area (putting green) near the Maro cliffs and will virtually surround this village. Access will be afforded from a new roundabout on the N-340 between the Maro entrance one and the sewage-treatment plant. To the North will be the residential area and to the South the golf and leisure sports area.

Now, we won’t bore you with more details but ask instead, given what we have seen this year; i.e., the drought in the Axarquía with villages having their water cut off and fruit-tree plantations dying or being cut down because there is not enough water to maintain them; with the nearest reservoir at only 12%… can a golf course be ecologically viable? We’re not talking about economic viability (although if the former is negative, then inevitably so is the latter).

The whole mass of housing and hotels are merely planets around a star; that’s to say, a golf course. The golf course is the very justification for everything else in the project.

If this summer is the harbinger of a dry future – and just about everybody from meteorologists to ecologists say that it is… can this project be allowed to go forward?

Yes, a golf course can receive its not-inconsiderable irrigation needs from recycled water, but shouldn’t agriculture be getting this precious recourse? You can eat agricultural crops but you can’t eat grass – you can play golf on it, but you can’t eat it. Yes, golf makes money but it doesn’t make the rain.

If you want to play golf, go to an existing one such as Los Moriscos in Motril or Baviera in Caleta de Vélez. It’s not convenient because of the distance? Well, nor is the beach for people who live in the interior, but they go anyway.

(News: Maro, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Málaga, Andalucia – Photo: E. Cabezas)