The Cuna del Alma project, in the Puertito de Adeje (Tenerife), would require an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the construction of hotels and villas, according to current environmental legislation and on which the initiative is based. The Government of the Canary Islands is currently studying all the documentation to determine if it is necessary or not and ensures that there will be a new resolution “soon” in this regard. The Adeje City Council considers that the environmental report of the Puertito management plan, approved in 2018, is sufficient.
The Canarian Government orders the precautionary stoppage of the works of the Cuna del Alma project, in the Puertito de Adeje
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In the background, what is underlying is a technical discussion between administrations on a matter of economic responsibilities in case the project does not go ahead. The consistory of the south of Tenerife understands that the works that the regional Executive has paralyzed in the area of action after verifying the presence of the sad viborina, a protected species, should not be subject to a particular EIA because, according to the interpretation that they have fact, it is not appropriate, said the councilor for Ecological Transition and Territory Management of Adeje, Manuel Luis Méndez, at the COPE chain.
The southern councilor maintains that the heavy machinery work that has been carried out on the ground is related to the construction of road infrastructure for Cuna del Alma, not hotels or luxury villas, and that these would be framed within the “projects of urbanizations, including the construction of shopping centers and car parks”, according to Law 21/2013, on the environmental evaluation of projects. The Government of the Canary Islands, Luis Méndez has continued, classifies the works within the group of “holiday developments and hotel complexes outside urban areas and associated constructions”.
Be that as it may, the environmental regulations, both of the Canary Islands and of the State, put in black on white that the environmental evaluations of the management plans do not exclude those that can be made of projects derived from them. The law says so 21/2013of environmental evaluation, as the law 9/2006, on evaluation of the effects of certain plans and programs on the environment. Several environmental lawyers consulted by this newspaper reaffirm this idea and ensure that Cuna del Alma, with an extension of 500,000 square meters, does deserve a differentiated EIA.
On the other hand, councilor Luis Méndez has also said that the construction of the roads in the Puertito de Adeje will make it possible to change the classification of the land to urban, so that later “an environmental impact assessment will not be necessary” for the rest of the complex. expected vacation. However, none of the regulations places a specific land classification among the cases of exclusion from an EIA. This is not a criterion to be taken into account, as are projects whose sole objective is national defense or civil protection, or those approved by a State law.
A study published four years ago in the journal Environmental Legal Update analyzes the state of the exclusion from the EIA of projects in Spain. The text details that public institutions can rule out a specific program of the pertinent environmental evaluation, but these must be seen “as mandatory emergency remedies with which to deal with extraordinary situations.” As examples, mention is made of the construction of penitentiary centers and “repair works on critical infrastructures damaged as a result of catastrophic events and emergency works.”
The investigation details that in the Canary Islands, in 2015, 16 wind farms were excluded from the environmental assessment “given the exceptional circumstances that existed”, but no tourist complexes or anything of the sort are mentioned that have also benefited. The regional government, for its part, points out that those proposals that have as their objective “the execution of works in the degraded physical environment (…) that seriously endanger the safety and health of citizens,” according to the land law of 2017.
“Environmental legislation must be complied with in the defined line, however tortuous it may be. There are no shortcuts”, highlighted the Minister of Ecological Transition, the Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands, José Antonio Valbuena. In a context of climate crisis, the European Union has also placed special emphasis on this, warning that global warming, resource efficiency and the protection of biodiversity “should also constitute important elements in the evaluation and decision-making processes.” decisions”.
Discrepancy between laws, but not very important
The Government of the Canary Islands and the Adeje City Council do not agree with respect to the basic laws of the General Plan of the Puertito de Adeje, the urban framework on which Cuna del Alma will be based. On the one hand, the regional Executive assures through an official spokesman that the revision of said program, signed in 2018, is carried out under the Canarian land legislation of 2017, for which reason the corresponding environmental evaluation regulation is 21/2013. . The southern council of Tenerife, however, defends in the environmental memory of the management document that initiated the procedures for it before December 12, 2014, so it is covered by regulation 9/2006.
But the truth is that, at the level of application of an EIA, there is not much difference between the two provisions. The first (21/2013), the most recent, states that the “holiday developments and hotel facilities outside urbanized land and associated constructions” will be subject to the simplified environmental assessment (not strategic). The second, already repealed, specifies that projects “that may have significant effects on the environment” will also do so, be they tourism, urban and rural planning, industrial, etc.
All the sources consulted highlight the importance of an EIA in projects of this style, beyond the environmental memory of the management plan. One of them claims to have found the inventory of species found in the unit of action “not very rigorous” and recalls that the sad viper, the plant that is part of the Canary Islands Catalog of Protected Species and has shaken the promoter, is not mentioned in the text. After the social rejection that this tourism macro-project has generated on the island of Tenerife, it is at least curious that it was initially concluded that its environmental impact would be “compatible or insignificant”. Hence the relevance that a detailed evaluation may have, the same sources continue.
