86 people currently live in Masca. Twenty years ago there were 129, 33.3% more. The reality of Teno Alto is similar. In the year 2000 it had 101 residents and there are barely 65 left, a figure that represents 35% less, according to the latest data from the Canary Islands Institute of Statistics (ISTAC).
Rural depopulation is a demographic phenomenon that not only affects the towns of the Peninsula, it is a reality that Tenerife is not left out of and Buenavista del Norte, with 4,753 inhabitants, is one of the most significant examples for having hamlets that They are quite isolated from the town center or from more populated areas and have a common denominator: the lack of basic services despite the fact that the population in both nuclei is older people. In Masca there are no longer boys and girls of school age and in Teno Alto only young people in their last phase of secondary school.
If living in Buenavista already implies a double insularity, when doing so in Teno Alto and Masca, both nestled in the Protected Natural Area of the Teno Rural Park, it is multiplied by two.
There are no pharmacies and no supermarkets. The closest, in the case of Teno Alto, is that of El Palmar, which is an extension, and in Masca, the closest is that of Santiago del Teide.
Teno has a small food outlet but in Masca there is not even that, although there are catering points, oriented towards tourism and visitors and livestock and agricultural farms.
It is the biggest complaint of its inhabitants, that all its development is focused and projected for tourism and leaves aside the resident population, even if it is a small proportion.
A “completely correct” diagnosis, underlines the mayor, Antonio González Fortes. “Everything that the neighbors have been demanding over the years is based on their experience and reflects well how a rural area where people live faces a massive tourist activity and what it implies for them on a day-to-day basis. If to this is added the degree of protection that the hamlet has, declared an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC), you have the perfect combination so that none of the conditions exist for people who want to live there ”, certifies the president .
González maintains that in most cases in which there is a significant loss of population, this is directly proportional to the commercial or tourist activity in the area. However, the opposite occurs in both hamlets, both have only grown in the last 20 years, during which time, in parallel, they have continued to reduce the number of inhabitants.
“It is the whiting that bites its tail, we return to generate economic activity outside of what is the residence and the growth of the place and they remain as a movie set where people go to spend their vacations and that is precisely what we do not want” González points out.
In both cases they are activities linked to the consumption of nature and landscape in different slopes of the Teno massif that allow you to enjoy the North and South part of the Island. Masca is an absolutely consolidated destination in this sense, aimed at enjoying the ravine and the beach but also the hamlet itself, while Teno have become established due to the rise of outdoor sports.
This opens the door to other types of arguments and debates on the reasons for depopulation. The analyzes that are handled by the City Council are quite variable because they are two different realities, that of Masca, with a much less adverse climate, and that of Teno Alto, where life is much harder because its climate is very harsh. And although it is a paradise, very cold or hot days are difficult to bear and that is why many people have chosen to go and live in the center of the municipality.
From the Consistory they consider that it is essential that transport, health and telecommunications come closer to the population. “The same as in the 50s these nuclei were isolated due to the non-existence of the highway in Teno Alto or the conditions of the one in Masca, today, in a 2.0 society, it is essential to have a good telecommunications network,” insists the governor.
In this sense, the City Council seeks that all the services it provides in the municipality are the same regardless of the area or neighborhood in which one resides. Even the activities that are organized for the elderly, such as entertainment, are tried to be taken to Masca and Teno Alto or to neighborhoods closer to both such as El Palmar.
Titsa has a regular transport service to Masca (line 355 that connects the village with Santiago del Teide), but the municipal government considers that it is insufficient and does not respond to the demand of the residents. Nor to the tourist attraction that Masca is in itself, “since it must be focused with twice as many vehicles as it currently has and with characteristics that adapt to this area of the Island in a modern way,” defends González Fortes.
The buses from Titsa do not reach Teno Alto, although the City Council has promised to implement the bus-taxi combination, confirms the president. To alleviate this deficiency, there is a municipal transport service twice a week and it goes to your home. It is paid for entirely through the municipal coffers and is used a little “à la carte”, in coordination with the neighbors to go to the health center, carry out administrative procedures and take advantage of it to make purchases.
Another of the legs of the table of this debate is the Master Plan for Use and Management (PRUG), that is, what type of growth has been proposed at the urban level for these enclaves. Up to now, the one proposed in this document is very limited and is based only on the recovery of the pockets that are already constituted and that seems clearly insufficient and has exposed much of the building that is outside.
In Teno Alto, where residents regularly reside, changing the PRUG becomes a priority so that there is population growth, it is perpetuated, and it motivates people to settle there. The fact that some more housing can be built has to be, in the opinion of the mayor, focused solely on the residential area, to recover population and stop being the ’emptied Tenerife’. And for that it is essential that there are services, otherwise, “nobody is going to live there,” he remarks.
