The campaign launched by Ben Magec Ecologists in Action against the construction of the port of Fonsalía, in Guía de Isora, has collected more than 400,000 signatures, over 417,000.
‘Take Action for Hope’ is, by far, the campaign with more accessions than many are active on the ‘You Move Europe’ website, which also include similar initiatives against the Chira Soria hydroelectric project, in Gran Canaria, or in favor of renewable energies in the Canary Islands compatible with biodiversity.
The title of the campaign against the port of Fonsalía pays tribute to ‘Hope’, a tropical pilot whale that had to be euthanized in the southwest of Tenerife in March 2019 because a ship’s propeller cut off its tail.
In the text of your petition, Ben Magec requests the denial of permits and funds for the construction of the port, then, he claims, “it would attempt” against the values protected by the Special Conservation Zone (ZEC) Teno-Rasca Marine Strip, which surrounds Fonsalía.
Abounds in that the design of the ZEC, which extends to more than 1,000 meters deep and protects the entire southwest coast of Tenerife, some 30 kilometers from Teno in the north to La Rasca in the south, left a “hole” in the middle, Fonsalía, between Alcalá and San Juan.
The construction of a port in that enclave, emphasizes the environmental organization, “would have incompatible direct and indirect impacts” on habitats and species protected at the European level and present in the ZEC, such as seagrass meadows, known as “sebadales”, sea turtles loggerhead and green, bottlenose dolphin and pilot whale.
Ben Magec also argues that there is sufficient port infrastructure already operational in Tenerife, and that the saturation of the Los Cristianos could be solved with “better management” of the schedules of the shipping companies that operate there and accessibility by land.
The Fonsalía port project has generated an intense debate in the economic, business and political spheres.
On the one hand, the construction employers in the Tenerife province (Fepeco), the Port Authority and councils of Tenerife, La Palma and La Gomera defend the construction of the port of Fonsalía, which also received the support of all parliamentary groups except that of Yes We Can Canarias.
The same happened in the plenary session of the Cabildo de Tenerife, whose president, the socialist Pedro Martín, has become one of the main defenders of Fonsalía. The other, his counterpart in La Gomera and leader of ASG, Casimiro Curbelo.
Opposite are, in addition to the environmental organizations, the mayor of Arona, José Julián Mena, expelled from the PSOE, and Nueva Canarias, a formation to which the Canarian vice president and finance minister, Román Rodríguez, who in recent days has slipped that it will be “very complicated” for Fonsalía to get ahead.
Meanwhile, the president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, has indicated that technicians from the house are analyzing whether the environmental impact statement has expired, as advanced by the Minister of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning, José Antonio Valbuena.
Torres also said that if, indeed, the environmental impact statement expired, it would be necessary to assess a series of “ponderables”, such as the beginning of a new declaration, “see what Europe says” or the fact that “the situation is much more demanding “than 17 years ago when people started talking about this infrastructure.
And it should also be appreciated that “the economic resources are what they are”, since it is a work of “more than 200 million euros”.
