The environmental association Save La Tejita has filed a lawsuit against the Adeje Town Council for authorising the translocation of the sad viper’s bugloss, a protected species, to push forward the Cuna del Alma tourism project. The grounds for the lawsuit, to which this newspaper has had access, emphasize that the decision to relocate this species is null and void as it was issued by an ”manifestly incompetent” body and ”completely disregarding the legally established procedure”. Along these lines, Save La Tejita has requested the precautionary suspension of the works progressing in the Puertito de Adeje to build 420 luxury villas.
In November 2022, the Department of Ecological Transition ordered the precautionary halt of Cuna del Alma because the works posed an ”imminent threat of environmental damage” to the protected wild flora. The Biodiversity Service of the regional Government, the Agency for the Protection of the Natural Environment, and volunteer scientists who travelled to the area were able to confirm the presence of a population of sad viper’s bugloss (Echium triste) on the land affected by the project. Furthermore, the Department reported then that there was also formal recognition by the company itself of the presence of this plant ”and the interference of the works with it”.
This species is classified as specially protected within the Canary Catalogue of Protected Species. Nevertheless, the developer, Segunda Casa Adeje S.L., owned by Belgian businessman Filip Hoste, requested to relocate it. Then, Ecological Transition issued a negative report recalling that only very few exceptions allow this intervention, and the construction of 420 luxury villas was not among them.
Exceptions would only apply for harmful effects on health, when there is a threat to people’s safety due to the plant, to prevent significant damage to crops, livestock, forests, fisheries, or water quality, for imperative reasons of overriding public interest, or for research or educational purposes.
The current regional Executive, led by the Canarian Coalition and the Popular Party, allowed this file to lapse in the summer of 2023. In February 2024, the Government of the Canary Islands deemed itself incompetent to decide whether the population of sad viper’s bugloss located in the Puertito de Adeje should be transplanted or not. Then, the Executive left the decision in the hands of the Tenerife Cabildo.
Finally, the Adeje Town Council assumed responsibility for this matter and authorised the developer to translocate the sad viper’s bugloss, thus paving the way for the resumption of the works.
The Town Council, led for over 30 years by the socialist José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga, had the approval of its environmental body, which gave the green light to a series of measures focused on collecting seeds of the plant and spreading them in other areas of similar characteristics. At that time, the president of the environmental body was still Rosendo López, a biologist who resigned from that position after it became known that, while holding it, he advised the company promoting Cuna del Alma.
The viper’s bugloss, at risk
The Law 4/2010, of 4 June, of the Canary Catalogue of Protected Species, includes in its annex IV the Echium triste within the Special Protection category, reserved for those wild species deserving special attention in any part of the Canary territory due to their scientific, ecological, cultural value or for their uniqueness or rarity. The same law, in its article 57.1, prohibits uprooting these species, cutting them, collecting them, mutilating them, or intentionally destroying them in the wild.
These prohibitions may be lifted ”by prior administrative authorisation of the autonomous community or the General State Administration”, states the law, cited in the lawsuit, ”for imperative reasons of overriding public interest”.
According to the lawsuit filed by Save La Tejita, presented before the Administrative Court number 2 of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, even in the hypothetical case that the Town Council were competent, it would have breached the duties imposed on it by the Law of Natural Heritage and Biodiversity.
By authorising its relocation, the municipal corporation would have jeopardised the conservation status ”of an entire subpopulation of this species in its natural habitat”, since ”the plant’s fibrous structures are destroyed in a transplant”, warn environmentalists.
They also insist that this authority, so far exercised by the environmental areas of the island councils or the regional Government, has been implemented for the first time in a municipality, ”setting a dangerous precedent”.
The translocation of the sad viper’s bugloss has opened a new legal front for Cuna del Alma. Already in December 2024, the Save La Tejita platform reported that the Public Prosecutor’s Office for the Environment had admitted the complaint filed for the resumption of the works. The environmental association highlighted the ”severity and irreversibility” of the damage caused by the works, warning of the possible criminal implications of the acts.
A protest called
The Save El Puertito platform has called for a protest this Saturday, 14 June, against the project. The protest will take place at 12:00 noon at the entrance of the Baobab hotel in Costa Adeje, owned by the Cuna del Alma promoter, Filip Hoste. ”That day we will inform their clients about the sale of luxury apartments from an illegal project. We will explain what the Puertito de Adeje is, how it is being destroyed, and why we should not support businesses that harm the environment,” the organisers inform.
The construction of this tourist complex continues, after the regional Government allowed not only the file for the threat to the sad viper’s bugloss to expire but also those opened in the last legislature for destroying archaeological sites and for starting the works without an environmental impact assessment.
More than a year after the file for damages to heritage expired, the Directorate General of Cultural Heritage of the regional Executive has proposed a new sanction. The proposed fine is 229,503 euros, much lower than that set in 2022, which amounted to 600,000 euros for a ”very serious” offence.
