SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, June 21 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The mayor of Los Realejos, Adolfo González, will formally request the Government of the Canary Islands to halt the processing of the Master Plan for Use and Management (PRUG) of the Teide National Park, “a natural area of which Los Realejos is a part and has a lot to say and for whose drafting there has not been the sensitivity to establish a prior dialogue with the municipalities, groups whose activity is affected or citizens in general”.
The realejero mayor indicated that not even through the Canarian Federation of Municipalities (Fecam) they have been given transfer of procedures or previous communications and –as he said– “we have learned these days through the press of a plan of special relevance and scope for the Island that had to be worked on and agreed upon in society and before its publication, reasons for which rejection, alarm and social concern have been generated”.
“Faced with issues such as restrictions, free access and uses of the Park, both by residents and tourists, a general rule has been chosen for prohibition instead of regulation,” added the mayor, who pointed out that there must be “a balance between conservation and public uses of the natural space in question”.
Adolfo González questioned whether the proposed new mobility system, consisting of the construction of three large infrastructures in Vilaflor, El Portillo and Chío for parking vehicles, receiving visitors and transferring to the Park, is not contrary to the main objective of safeguarding natural environments, which “casts us in doubt about environmental sustainability and its cost,” he said.
For the mayor, “being aware of the limited nature of our territory and the need to regulate to protect, it is unacceptable to suddenly find ourselves with a proposal that prohibits free transit in the National Park without proposing balanced, serious and coherent alternatives, which affects our historical and cultural relationship with our land and our landscape, as well as our productive model”.
“To this we must add that heritage elements such as the symbolic Fregel Cross or the Degollada Cross would be at risk of demolition in accordance with this proposal for the Master Plan for the Use and Management of the Teide National Park”, lamented Adolfo González.
As for other uses of the Park included in the PRUG drawn up by the Government of the Canary Islands, according to the mayor, “we have found that sports activities with more than 50 participants or spectators are not allowed, so mountain races or tests Cyclists will be limited to paved roads, which puts at risk the continuity of already consolidated sports events; or the practice of climbing will go from being a traditional activity to an extraordinary one; and, for example, the use of walking sticks by hikers will be prohibited ; or is considered incompatible with the uses of the park the traditional recreational-sports activity of hunting as the use of wild animals or a clear effect on beekeeping activity”.
With all this, the Local Government Board of the Los Realejos City Council will assist its mayor, Adolfo González, to request the aforementioned stoppage of the PRUG process, demanding “that the citizens of the municipality and the entire island be given a voice to, in consensus, decide which model we want and tackle it from the beginning with longer deadlines”.
