Brotherhoods and fishermen from the island of Tenerife will gather this Saturday, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., in front of the Port Authority headquarters, to show their rejection of the installation of offshore wind turbines between Güímar and Granadilla, as stated in the POEM (Plan for the Management of Marine Spaces), recently approved by the Ministry of Ecological Transition and which in Tenerife determines two areas called TEN1 (Southeast of the port of Granadilla), of 21 square kilometers, and TEN2 (Güímar, Fasnia and Arico ), of 70.78 square kilometers, less than a kilometer from the coast, as denounced yesterday in Onda Tenerife by Fran García, manager of the Brotherhood of San Miguel de Tajao, in Arico.
For him, the installation of these generators, up to five less than 500 meters from the coast of Arico and Granadilla, would determine “the death of fishing and the disappearance of Tajao as a town, where everyone lives from fishing and from the 13 restaurants They offer fresh fish.
García recalls that the sector is already making an “excess effort in view of the tuna quota imposed by the Government of Spain” and if now “they put those mills on us, I don’t know where we are going to go fishing, they are not compatible with our activity throughout the life, on the small continental platform that our waters have,” he said. In addition, he insisted that “the people of Tajao live 100% from fishing. If they make it difficult for us to work, it would not even make sense for marine restoration tourism, it would have to close the town ”.
García recalled that only for the northern area of Tajao Puertos Canarios “he plans to anchor five mills in an area where, in addition to being shallow, there are sebadales and angelsharks”, a marine ecosystem that the sector “has preserved and will to make disappear.” Likewise, he stressed the danger posed to the ships that work the chains and the infrastructure of the mill, some anchored to the seabed “with a cable”, with what this generates a magnetic field. Along with this condition, the project would result in “impacts on the environment, due to its proximity to the coast, the production of environmental noise, which would affect the population, as well as marine wildlife.”
When it was made clear to him that counselor Valbuena affirms that offshore parks will not be installed until 2030, Fran García indicates that “we were going to meet with him, but it has not yet been possible” and he is confident that the project can be redirected, because “those mills so close to the coast and in our fishing grounds they are our grave”, indicated the manager of the Tajao Brotherhood.