The president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martin, left yesterday at the passing of statements made to DIARIO DE AVISOS by the Minister of Ecological Transition, José Antonio Valbuena, in which he considered the construction of the port of Fonsalía “almost unviable” and described it as “waste of time” to start a new environmental impact study, “with the current demanding legislation”, after the previous evaluation expired in December 2020.
“It is much more populist to demonstrate against a port than to try to generate social development, but I do not want to fall into populism,” Martín told this newspaper, who admitted to being “concerned” with the counselor’s statements “because he already takes for granted that it does not matter what environmental evaluation is done because it understands that the port should not be done ”.
“Forget that these evaluations establish criteria that may be more or less correct, but that can be analyzed and corrected, and I think that a project that has been trying to get ahead for 25 years deserves to be at least environmentally evaluated before it can be ruled out,” he said. Martín, who showed his surprise because the opinion of the presidents of the councils is not heard. “The counselor should not rush with opinions that may sound apparently good, but that leaves out the criteria of the island representatives, with the same environmental concerns as anyone else, but we think about development, about the ability to improve communications, about to lower transport costs and to facilitate the transit of the economy of the peripheral islands ”.
Regarding the announcement by the Minister of Ecological Transition to commission a study from the University of La Laguna on the environmental values that surround the surroundings of Fonsalía and the Special Conservation Area and that he will transfer to the Department of Public Works, the president of the Cabildo invited Valbuena to expand the report: “I would ask you to commission a study for all the Canary Islands coasts and we would surely be surprised. Because, if not, it would seem that the only objective of this study is to be able to find a justification for saying no to the port ”. In addition, he pointed out that “it is astonishing that an approach is made that would go against the Government of the Canary Islands and a recent approval by Parliament.”
Regarding Los Cristianos, Martín indicated that “some forget that it is in a Special Conservation Area and that probably no changes could be made due to a matter of respect for the environment” and insisted on the idea of transferring the port movement from the port of Aronero to Fonsalía : “We are not talking about one more port, but about moving maritime traffic to another place.” The possible alternative of Granadilla qualifies it as “occurrence”, because, in his opinion, it would be a more complicated journey due to currents, it would increase travel time, energy consumption and the bill for goods and passengers. And he asked himself: “How do you intend to mix the industrial use of the port with the transit of people?”
Pedro Martín defined himself as a “defender of marine fauna, there would be more”, and asked to set protection criteria for the ports of the Islands. “I am from Guía de Isora and I guarantee that the whales are not only there. Or have we forgotten about the Jet Foil accidents between Santa Cruz and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria? ”.
