Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio is best known for the harrowing film ‘Blood Diamond‘, but plans to build his synthetic diamond factory in a small town in western Spain have angered locals.
Residents of a small Spanish town are fighting the installation of several electricity pylons to power a synthetic diamond factory in which American actor Leonardo DiCaprio is a major investor.
Trujillo, in the western province of Cáceres (Extremadura) and the birthplace of the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, will from 2025 be home to the Diamond Foundry, a company that ‘grows’ diamonds using plasma reactors that reproduce the pressure and heat conditions necessary to create them.
These diamonds, which are free of all the moral and environmental problems associated with diamond mining, as depicted in DiCaprio’s 2006 hit film ‘Blood Diamond’, will be produced in between 6 and 10 weeks.
But this requires a lot of electricity, which is where the conflict with the locals comes from.
The people of Trujillo, who are generally supportive of the project, have objected to the installation of 22 forty-metre electricity towers to supply the factory.
This is mainly because the towers would cross El Berrocal, a nature reserve overlooking the walled city, which is home to prehistoric and medieval ruins. Trujillo is renowned for its natural beauty and was once a candidate for World Heritage status.
Lin Mateos, spokesman for the Save El Berrocal platform, told La Sexta that this would not be allowed to happen elsewhere. The towers “cannot be placed in front of the walls of Ávila or Lugo,” he argued, referring to two other historic walled cities in Spain.
“Imagine putting these towers 400 metres from the Alhambra… it can’t be allowed”.
Local residents are now on a war footing, and have already protested outside the town hall.
“We consider this an outrage, an attack on the city, the landscape and El Berrocal, a protected area,” adds Mateos.
The Fund for the Defence of the Natural and Cultural Heritage of Extremadura (FONDENEX) has asked the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office to investigate whether the pylons could be considered a crime against historical-artistic heritage.
Many residents are not opposed to the factory itself, which will create around 300 jobs, but to the prospect of it ruining the local landscape. “If the factory is on urban land, the rules say that the high-voltage lines must be underground,” Aurelio Moreno, a Trujillo resident, told the Spanish newspaper La Sexta.
The factory is due to start production in 2025.
