Guardamar del Segura
Guardamar del Segura or Guardamar is a municipality in Valencia, Spain. Located on the southeastern coast of the province of Alicante, in the district of Vega Baja del Segura. It has 16 329 inhabitants (INE 2009).
In its municipal mouth of the River Segura, the town is also known for its pine trees planted in the early twentieth century to halt the advance of sand dunes.
Geography
Guardamar is located south of the Segura River, which flows into the Mediterranean in the municipality. Official and traditionally has always been part of the district of Vega Baja del Segura, but some consider it part of the Lower Vinalopo for linguistic reasons, historical and geographical.
It is the southernmost town where they speak Valencian. The language is officially use, alongside Spanish, by the municipal administration and education, although in the past few years the use of Valencian has been declining, being reduced their use in the early twenty-first century.
The reason for this may be motivated by several factors: the discrediting and persecution he suffered in that language until a few decades ago, the fact of being the town almost completely surrounded by other municipalities traditional Spanish-speaking and mainly because of immigration arrival from speaking areas and abroad. According to population census data of 1991, 41.8% of the population could speak Guardamar del Segura Valencia and only 20.5% of the population could leerlo.1
However, since the advent of democracy, there are various signs of the revitalization of the conscience of its inhabitants as a municipality valencianoparlante, like the arrival of several “correlenguas” to the town, increased census in Valencian names, changing names of some streets or teaching in schools with that language as a vehicle. Among the associations that promote the survival and normalization of Valencia, is the cultural association La Gola.
The township has 11 km of coastline, which are found from North to South Beach The Tusales (south of the border with Elche and separated from the remainder of the term by the mouth of the Segura, enjoyment is nude) Hatcheries Beach, Beach Babylon, the Beach, the beach of La Roqueta Beach Moncayo, Campo beach and the beach of Las Ortigas (which continues on the south by the municipality of Torrevieja) 2
The pine forest of Guardamar
This forest area has 800 hectares and was originally a set of mobile sand dunes, fixed through the planting of various plant species such as agaves, pines, palms, cypress and eucalyptus.
On December 2, 1897 was approved by Royal Order on Defence and Reforestation Project of the Dunas de Guardamar. The forester and Bottle Francisco Mira approaches the task of fixing the dunes, using the method called Bremontier. Start by planting marram grass and reed lines, protecting the space with ores of Aleppo, to form palisades of 80 cm high. As the sands are buried, planted a new series, until it forms a contraduna 4 meters high. Then they replaced the hurdles for agaves, they grow to the rhythm of the dune, and the slopes are planted. This is done to stop the sand from the mar.
