SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 21 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The professor of Human Geography at the Carlos III University, Guillermo Morales, has demanded this Monday measures to “slow down” population growth in the Canary Islands as a step prior to preparing a residence law agreed with the population.
“That it be didactic and with everyone’s conscience,” he indicated during a speech at the Parliament’s demographic challenge study commission in which he predicted that “it will go wrong” if everyone does not agree, assuming “a cost” social and economic if in the end it is not carried out.
He has said that we must begin to “react” after the “surprise blow” of the population increase of some 400,000 inhabitants in the last 20 years, which has generated a “cosmopolitan” population in the archipelago.
He has charged against the “current predatory model” of economic development in the Canary Islands due to “human harassment of the territory”, to the point that he has argued that if nothing is done, they will not even save the protected natural spaces.
Morales has recognized that the Canary Islands already have an “overload” in the territory, “it is a fact”, since “the balance” between density of the territory and population has been broken, especially in Tenerife and Gran Canaria, and he believes that the law of the islands verdes is going in the right direction because it plans a model.
He has commented that “three million people already live in the archipelago”, and if tourists are added in August or in high season, they add up to four million, forecasts that are not “catastrophic” and that give him “chills”.
Thus, before advancing on the residence law –which he leaves for a second step– he believes that “urgent measures” must be taken to contain the growth of the population and have the appropriate “wickers” to establish an accurate “diagnosis”. .
He has rejected having to live in densely populated places like Singapore or Hong Kong and doubts that the Canary Islands can reach 17 million tourists. “They don’t fit is propaganda,” she added.
Morales has also pointed out that there are “structural problems” with water management and warned that if poverty increases in the Canary Islands because living conditions worsen there will be “less attractiveness” for tourists, who are looking for “comfort”.
He has not openly criticized the tourism subsector, in fact he has indicated that the hotelier is “exemplary” and “nothing needs to be changed”, but he did in vacation rentals, which is not controlled and affects the housing market. “I can’t stand it,” she stressed.
He has also warned of the demographic “blow” caused by high Italian immigration to the islands, attracted by the climate and tax benefits.
