The Tenerife Association of Friends of Nature (ATAN) has filed a complaint this Monday with the Canary Agency for the Protection of the Natural Environment and with the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Santa Cruz de Tenerife requesting the precautionary stoppage of the works in Sector 6 of the General Plan for Ordination of Adeje, in the Puertito de Adeje.
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As reported by the Environmental Association, businessmen, architects, engineers, among others, linked to the Cuna del Alma project are being denounced for the alleged commission of crimes related to land planning and urban planning, the protection of historical heritage and the environment. ambient; crimes against natural resources and the environment, and crimes related to the protection of fauna and flora.
The mayor of Adeje, José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga, and the rest of the councilors who signed the agreement to approve the urbanization project are also denounced for alleged administrative prevarication, as well as the authors of the Environmental Report that made it possible to approve this urban plan, for the alleged crime of falsifying a public document.
As ATAN points out, “alleged crimes against historical heritage are reported, first for the concealment of protected assets from the regional and island administrations during the consultation procedures for the approval of the review of the PGO of Adeje, providing incomplete environmental reports without reference to the patrimonial elements existing in the place; second, already in the works phase, due to the intentional destruction of archaeological sites, some already identified in the heritage evaluation phase prior to the start of the works”.
At the same time, alleged crimes on land use planning and urban planning, against the environment, fauna, flora and protected natural habitats are reported. In this regard, the Association indicates that in the environmental assessment process “the editors of the Environmental Report followed the same modus operandi as that carried out in the archaeological studies, that is, the concealment of relevant information on environmental matters, in this case, fauna, flora and protected habitats and with the same presumably criminal spirit, which was to avoid any limitation so that the existence of protected flora, fauna and habitats could imply for urban development”.
According to the Environmental Association, in said document (Environmental Report of sector 6 of the PGO of Adeje.2018) “more than 30 irregularities” can be found, such as, “a formal list of existing flora does not appear in the field of urban planning and Ten species of protected flora found in the area are omitted, including the sad viborina, which has the highest protection status of all these protected plant species present there.”
It is also denounced, in relation to the planning of the territory and land affected by the Coastal Law, an “aggressive” intervention in the strip of protection easement, with about 16,000 m2 destined for commercial, night, restaurant uses, etc. . As they affirm from ATAN, “the occupancy densities and the projected heights do not meet the requirements authorized for a protection easement, whose function by law is to cushion and safeguard the inalienable assets of the maritime-terrestrial public domain” .
The lawsuit filed by ATAN also revolves around the absence of a “rigorous” environmental assessment process, as provided for in the Environmental Assessment Law/2013, in force before the start of processing this review of sector 6 of the PGO of Adeje.
The legal defense of ATAN has been ensured with the support of graphic and technical evidence for each of the reported crimes; has the support of a study of flora and fauna of the place, carried out by qualified technical personnel, and has technical reports on archeology provided by the Tegüico Association and the Spanish Ornithology Society (SEO / Birdlife) in what which refers to the characterization of the avifauna.
