The Parliament of the Canary Islands will approve before the end of the current legislative period the extension of the protection, in 50% of the surface, of one of the few spaces of the coast of the south of Tenerife without urbanization: the Special Natural Reserve of Malpaís de la Rasca , which will go from the current 315 hectares to a total of 475.
For its parliamentary processing, a fast track will be used in order to speed up the approval of the law, through the presentation by the groups that make up the Government of the Canary Islands (PSOE, NC, Sí Podemos and ASG) of a proposal for law in the regional Chamber, as explained to DIARIO DE AVISOS José Antonio Valbuena, Minister of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning, who confirmed that the next Government Council will pronounce favorably on this measure.
“It is about prioritizing the natural values of a unique environment in the Canary Islands and protecting it for its high ecological value,” emphasized Valbuena, after pointing out that he feels he is a “co-promoter” of an initiative that began to work, hand in hand with the Arona City Council, during his time as councilor of the Cabildo: “We have been with the issue for more than four years,” he said. In fact, during his time as the island’s responsible for the Environment, he visited the area that is now intended to be preserved together with the mayor José Julián Mena.
This expansion will meet the demand raised by the Arona City Council, which for years has defended extending the protection framework of this Special Nature Reserve due to its great ecological, cultural and ethnographic value, and thus preserve this place from urban pressure, the dumping of garbage and debris, looting of archaeological remains and the circulation of all-terrain vehicles.
urgent measure
In the Law Proposal, to which this newspaper has had access, it is specified that this territorial area constitutes “one of the few spaces on the southern coast of Tenerife without urbanization, so it is urgent to extend the limits of protection in order to guarantee the viability of their survival”.
The Malpaís de la Rasca has a representative sample of cardonal-tabaibal, populations of animals (among them the tizón, the perenquén or the speckled lizard), and vegetables (such as the sad tajinaste), classified as threatened species, as well as about thirty of endemic elements that require special protection, as well as a large number of geomorphological structures representative of the island’s geology, such as the volcanic cone of La Laguneta or the malpaís lava field.
The extension of legal protection as a Special Natural Reserve will extend from the southern limit of the El Palm-Mar Urbanization, extended to the west to the coast and continuing south to the current limit of the Reserve in Caletón de los Goros, and towards the east to the TF-66 highway, and following it in a southeasterly direction until an agricultural track that connects with the current limit of the Reserve.
