The president of the Cabildo of Tenerife, Rosa Dávila (Coalición Canaria), announced this Wednesday the creation of a monitoring unit that will monitor and, where appropriate, sanction possible environmental violations in natural spaces on the island that are disseminated through social media. In other words, action will be taken once the violation has occurred, provided it is shared on social media.
The monitoring team will consist of two people from the environmental area of the Cabildo, as agreed in the weekly meeting of the island government’s council, which Rosa Dávila and the vice president of the Cabildo, Lope Afonso (PP), reported in a press conference.
The president has stated that this digital environmental monitoring unit is likely “pioneering” in Spain, and its aim is to prevent social media from becoming “a showcase for impunity.” However, this system will not prevent violations from occurring or being disseminated on social media; it will merely serve to identify them and, eventually, sanction them.
The monitoring unit will have the capacity to initiate sanctioning procedures when a violation is committed in areas under the responsibility of the Cabildo and will receive support from environmental agents and the police.
The aim, according to Dávila, is to identify, document, and sanction uncivil behaviour in protected natural areas that is shared on social media, such as access to restricted zones, flying drones, or taking volcanic stones.
“We cannot allow that in digital environments, in the pursuit of a good photo, regulations are violated,” emphasised the island president, who noted that the Cabildo already pursues and sanctions these behaviours, but now they are taking “a step further” through active monitoring of social media.
She did not mention anything about increasing surveillance in the protected areas themselves to prevent violations from occurring in the first place.
On social media, in addition to the publications of the violations themselves, there are also denunciation posts that serve to alert what is happening in environments like the Teide National Park. Visitors smoking despite a fire alert, flying drones in restricted areas, parking on verges, walking off the trails, or taking stones from Teide are some of the behaviours that outrage users. One of the posts denouncing such activities is by photographer Diego Manrique, which has already exceeded 130,000 views on Instagram.
