This morning, the Teide National Park was met with the message “The Canary Islands have a limit” painted on one of its access roads. This slogan represents the 20A protests calling for a shift in the mass tourism model and the socioeconomic structure of the archipelago, following a large demonstration on April 20 in the Canary Islands.
Lope Afonso, the vice president and councilor of Tenerife Council, condemned the act as going beyond acceptable limits. He stated that post the 20A protests, it is crucial that “demands and grievances should not manifest as acts of vandalism or attacks on public property, especially our scenic and natural areas. The Teide National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and deserves preservation and reverence. Everything is not permissible,” he added.
The Canary Islands will have a limit, but this exceeds it.
The vindication and demands cannot be transformed into vandalism or attack public property and, especially, our landscape and our natural spaces.
The Teide National Park is a World Heritage Site… pic.twitter.com/t8V8WDTK35
— Lope Afonso (@Lope_afonso) April 24, 2024
Last Saturday, thousands of inhabitants of Tenerife took to the streets of Santa Cruz de Tenerife chanting “The Canary Islands are not for sale, they are cherished and defended”, in a monumental rally aiming for a transformation in the mass tourism sector.
The protestors demanded safeguards for the local community against the surge in tourist activities, such as restrictions on property purchases by foreigners, heightened preservation of natural areas, a tourist levy, and a temporary halt to the tourism industry.
