Moments of tension continue to add up in the camping in the Port of Adeje that intends to paralyze the works of the tourism macroproject Cradle of the Soulin Tenerife. On this day, according to the platform Save La Tejita, the workers of the construction company H5 Los Olivos trampled and uprooted protected plant specimens shouting “let me work”. “Today we have witnessed how the Civil Guard and the Canarian Agency for the Protection of the Natural Environment have allowed, through their resignation, that workers from the construction company H5 Los Olivos trample protected plant specimens,” the activists shared on social networks together to a video in which you can check the sequence of events.
A commercial area on a Guanche settlement, the report of the works in Puertito de Adeje, in detail
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In the images, an operator, in a visible fit of rage, rips out and kicks some of the plants that one of the protesters was guarding. “What’s the plant?” he yells as he reaches down and pulls out a few specimens. “Fuck the fucking plant!”, He snaps at the activists who try to make the works respect this plant species, included in the catalog of protected plants.
The video also shows that other workers, apparently from the security team, attack the activists, pushing them towards an area of stalks. “Get out of here,” they say between insults.
“Today we have witnessed how the Civil Guard and the Canarian Agency for the Protection of the Natural Environment have allowed, by relinquishing their duties, workers from the construction company H5 Los Olivos to trample on specimens of protected plants.” #savethepuertito pic.twitter.com/wS4DQj6Zjs
– Save La Tejita (@salvartejita) September 20, 2022
Tension continues to escalate between protesters and workers. There are already several moments like this captured and spread on social networks by environmentalists. For example, when at the end of July several activists chained themselves or stood in front of bulldozers To protest peacefully and protect some hundred-year-old specimens of cardons, a worker started a mechanical shovel and hit one of the youths, who was pushed towards the chains of the moving vehicle, endangering his life.
Cuna del alma, which intends to urbanize with hotels and villas (among other infrastructures) more than 400,000 square meters in a ravine and beach in the south of Tenerife, has two negative reports (from 2014 and 2017) and one sanction proposal by the General Directorate of Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands, which confirmed, after a report from the Island Council, that it had been destroyed irreversibly and without taking any protective measures an important archaeological site.
However, the Deputy Minister of Ecological Transition of the Government of the Canary Islands, Miguel Ángel Pérez, has stated in Parliament that “today” the tourism project can be carried out because it meets the planning and strategic environmental assessment requirements. However, he acknowledges that an investigation is open because a protected plant species does not appear in the impact reports, and its presence would require certain conditions for the project, something that he acknowledges that he does not know if it has been fulfilled.
