The Mineu proyect, and example of eco-tourism in a mining landscape: The Sierra Minera of La Unión, Murcia, España.

Abstract

The development of this article will centre on showing how the history of a geographical space comes marked by the natural resources that we find on it. If we relate the history of another place would be completely different, since it would be affected by other factors. For the study of this article we are situated in a mining zone with more than 25 centuries of history placed in the south-east zone of Spain. The Sierra Minera of Cartagena La Unión, at the south of the region of Murcia, occupies approximately approximately 10 x 5 kilometres and has a rectangular surface lengthened in direction North-East – Southwest . In this space we find one of the major accumulations of lead and zinc of the Iberian Peninsula. This mountainous set, which is considered part of the Bética mountain chain in its more oriental part, spreads parallel to the Mediterranean coast from the city of Cartagena up to Cabo de Palos and separates the littoral of the interior plain in which finds the city of La Union. The coastal zone is abrupt whereas the interior has softer mountains, coming up to the plain of the Cartagena's field. In all this Sierra, which colors ocres and reddish made presage to the former civilizations of the existence of mineral The ocres and redish colors along the sierra made presage to the former civilizations of the existence of a greats quantity minerals. In this space we find one of the major accumulations of lead and zinc of the Iberian Peninsula. The coastal situation of this territory, which was favoring the trade with other zones of the Mediterranean, the richness of its lands and fundamentally the mineral richness of its mounts, has motivated that different civilizations have fought to settle on this rich coast. We find a landscape deeply modified, become infested with elements archeoindustrials, as mineral washersy, head frames, shafts, and landscape elements as surgencias, rafts and dumps, which betray to us the great quantity of changes that have realized the different cultures on him it. The Sierra Minera of Cartagena - La Unión is in a zone deeply marked by the changes that suffered historically all the coasts of the Mediterranean Arch. From the Bronze Age we can find settlements in the zone that reflect the first works of mining industry. After the first Phoenician and Greek populations, that used methods of extraction based on wells and galleries technologies, the mining splendour came with the Romans, since they developed a few advanced technologies of exploitation that allowed creating a prosperous mining industry based basically on the lead and the silver. The great economic growth lived in the zone, thanks to the mines, brought the foundation of Carthago-nova, a prosperous Roman settlement with a great trade with other points of the Mediterranean and an advanced urbanism for the epoch. The present Cartagena, especially his old town, is seated on the ruins of buildings of Roman Period. These buildings, are being found nowadays in the works of the new constructions that there is realized in the city, which is giving a great archaeological importance to the same one. The intervention carried out by the Town council to safeguard this great patrimony consists of raising the ground floors and supporting the basements as museum spaces. One of the finds of major importance, that is necessary to highlight, is the Roman Theatre found under the ruins of the city, and that is just now near to his opening to the public once restored by the architect Rafael Moneo. After the Roman occupation, where the great majority of the mineral was extracted, there came near to the depletion of the mines with the means of extraction that existed till then, which led to the abandon of the mines and to a great economic crisis from the 2nd century D.C. This situation was mixed with a few years of the history become infested with obscurantism, battles and diseases, the Middle Ages, which kept the zone in an economic lethargy of which would not wake up until centuries later. After centuries of almost total absence of the mining activity, arises, from 1840, one most important mining and metallurgical development that allowed to place to the district of Cartagena-La Unión, between the principal producers of lead, not only of Spain, but entire world. The Sierra of Cartagena, between 1860 and 1900, was producing as average 44 % of the production of lead of Spain, which in turn was appearing between the first world producers.