It looks like yet another summer will see Nerja's Río Chillar waterfalls closed off to the public as on the 8th of August it will mark the beginning the third year of the ban.

Despite it being forbidden to go up the river to the Cahorros (waterfalls), people still do it, either unaware of the ban (unlikely because of the notice boards up there) or because they don’t care. However, if they are caught, they will face a fine.

The fact is that the amount of people going up this riverbed when it was open to the public was approaching overwhelming levels, so this closure has brought a respite for the flora and fauna at least.

Another reason that they don’t want excursionists up there is because of the fire risk at the height of summer.

The bureaucratic process to put a private company in to run the access, etc, ground to a halt in March after the Junta rejected three company names put forward.

The Junta de Andalucia‘s Head of Agriculture & and the Environment, Fernando Fernández, explained that the Public Domain Water Authorities had given a negative response to the Town Hall’s proposal concerning companies to manage the access and litter removal in the river area.

Even the Environmental Department of the Junta had raised objections to the paperwork presented by the companies.

One entity that is happy that access to the waterfalls remains closed are the ecologists (GENA) who rejected the plan to charge 12 euros to get in because they want the area permanently closed to excursionists and accuse the administration about being more concerned with making money than protecting the area.

(News: Nerja, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia)

Keywords: Los Cahorros, Waterfalls, Río Chillar, Entrance Forbidden, Fines, Excursionists, Junta, Human Intrusion, Flora, Fauna

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