Tenerife Film Commission, a company dependent on the Island Council, and people who practice sports in the Teide National Park have expressed their doubts about the limitations that the new Governing Plan for Use and Management (PRUG) establishes the activity that they now develop. These doubts and criticisms are added to the expressed last week by the Canary Islands Audiovisual Cluster, which represents more than 60 companies and public entities in the sector.
Concern in the Canarian audiovisual sector about the prohibitions of the new Master Plan to record on Teide
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In a round table organized within the Canary Islands International Environmental Film Festival (FICMEC) they complained that “they seem to have written by hearsay” their proposals to regulate the space.
In fact, the representative of the Tenerife Film Commission, Ricardo Martínez, stressed that there is no documented record of the harmful effects of the filming, since the bail established for each filming has not been collected.
In the round table, moderated by the journalist Laura Afonso and held within the II Conference #PasasinfootprintThe director of the Teide National Park, Manuel Durban; the geographer Juan Pedro Hernández; the representative of the Telesforo Bravo-Juan Coello Foundation, Jaime Coello Bravo; the representative of the Tenerife Film Commission, Ricardo Martínez; the runner and organizer of the race from lighthouse to lighthouse, Marcelino Díaz, and the climber and representative of the Sustainable Climbing Association, Javier Martín Carbajal.
Matters as diverse and transcendental for the future of Tenerife as the carrying capacity of the island and the National Park, the mobility model, the overexploitation of protected natural spaces, the dependence on tourism, the contradictions between the regulations on paper and the real capacity of the administrations to take charge of compliance or the pressure of powerful economic sectors on politics with the intention of changing decisions in accordance with the regulations.
Likewise, they discussed the real participation of citizens, the presence of animal and plant species outside the natural space, the need to promote environmental education plans, the disturbances caused by the cable car, the need to find a balance between the economic benefits and the protection of the territory, the deterioration of the quality of life on the island as a result of an economic model that generates a very high exploitation of the territory and unsustainable demographic pressure, among others.
Thus, tourism is key in the overexploitation of the National Park and in exceeding its carrying capacity, since five million visitors can be reached in less than four years, according to figures provided by the director of the Park, Manuel Durbán , pick up a note from the festival organization.
a luxury hotel
The geographer Juan Pedro Hernández highlighted the existence of a luxury hotel plan that has not been eliminated from the Tenerife Insular Planning Plan (PIOT), the lack of regulation of companies that carry out economic activities with tourists, the need to curb the “ let the cable car company do” and the importance of protecting El Portillo, where it is planned to build an underground car park and create restoration facilities that would require changing the PIOT and the General Planning Plan (PGO) of La Orotava, because it is from a non-urban area.
For his part, Coello proposed that the buses that transport visitors through Teide pick them up at stations in La Esperanza and Aguamansa, an idea that Durban rejected.
Coello also pointed out the possibility of considering the environmental restoration of El Portillo and the need to include the debate on the management of the National Park in a larger reflection that encompasses the overload of Tenerife, visible in the pressure on natural spaces in the south of the island, traffic jams as an expression of the serious mobility problem and the saturation of health services, among others.
Both the representative of the Telesforo Bravo-Juan Coello Foundation and that of the Tenerife Film Commission highlighted the importance of providing the National Park with sufficient personnel resources so that it has the capacity to monitor the actions, since without this reinforcement, regulation will be “a toast to the sun”.
A runner who attended among the public disagreed with the approach of the guest runner at the table, saying that he did not feel threatened by the regulation of this sporting activity.
In general, the speakers related to sports activities denounced the “comparative grievance” due to the limits that are established on their activity while tourism is prioritized.
Likewise, another member of the public recalled that, during the four years that he was part of the Park’s board of trustees, he experienced the enormous difficulties involved in filming, which permanently propose changes in the authorized tracks and that “the political party” is inclined to authorize actions that “the technical part” rejects with the argument of the amount of millions of euros that these filmings mean.
Regarding citizen participation, the proposal to request an extension of the term for the presentation of allegations was noted, without this meaning an excessive delay in the approval process of the PRUG, given the need to update it and the need for “the drafting team and the Ministry meet with the affected groups”.
Limitations to the audiovisual sector
Last week it was the Canary Islands Audiovisual Cluster who publicly expressed his criticism of the Plansince it means “practically the prohibition of activity” within the Park, since on its pages 24 and 25 it establishes the prohibition of audiovisual activities for advertising purposes, the installation of any fixed or removable element that involves the occupation of public space and reduces the number of members of the work team to two people.
The Cluster stated that if the Teide National Park is left out of the sights of the audiovisual sector it will be “a disaster and the opportunity to diversify the Canarian economy will disappear” which, as indicated by the Pact for the Social and Economic Reactivation of the Canary Islands (2020 ), offers “an opportunity to diversify into activities with high added value, attracting other types of services”.
In addition, the draft of the Plan establishes limitations on parking and movement, opens the door to charge for parking in the areas designated for it and prohibits, among other things, the introduction of domestic animals, except those that carry out rescue tasks, animal control or accompany people with disabilities.
The Plan is still in the Public Information phase, so allegations can still be submitted (until July 5) before the Ministry of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands.
