ALMERIA – The environmental organisation Greenpeace on Thursday draped a massive piece of canvas over a hotel that had been illegally built on a beach in southern Spain.

Around 60 Greenpeace activists used 18,000 square metres (190,000 square feet) of green cloth to cover the Hotel Algarrobico, built in the Cabo de Gata national park near the southern town of Almeria.

The hotel has remained empty since it was built in 2005-6, and has become a symbol of the rampant urbanisation of Spain's Mediterranean coast. Judicial authorities have ordered its demolition several times.

Greenpeace activists also carried a banner reading "National park without illegal hotel."

It was the fourth protest by the organisation over the hotel in four years.

A government study released in November said 27.5 percent of Spain's Mediterranean coast was now under concrete, up from 16 percent in 1987, after a construction boom to meet the demands of mass tourism.

[AFP / Expatica]