Jose Conesa felt no hesitation as he surveyed the bare slopes of the the Guadarrama mountain range in late October. Conesa runs the Navacerrada ski resort and was certain nothing — not the lack of snow and certainly not the Spanish government’s plans to dismantle the resort— would prevent it from operating this winter.
After all, Navacerrada had been welcoming skiers since the 1940s, and the central government has been trying to shut it down for years, including in each of the past three seasons. Spain’s Minister for Environmental Transition, Teresa Ribera, called it "an occupation without a license and therefore, illegal.”
Just 50 kilometers north of Madrid, Navacerrada is a small but iconic spot held dear by the hundreds of thousands of Spaniards — including the country’s most famous Olympic skiing champions — who have touched snow on its slopes. It sits at the heart of a fraught dispute between authorities that want to turn it into a national park and locals who see it as a major source of income. The battle has become an example of the tensions that arise when efforts to restore nature clash with economic interests and even long-standing traditions.