The Cabildo de Tenerife has approved an amendment to the totality presented by the PSOE and Sí Podemos to urge the Government of the Canary Islands to extend the public information period of the document Master Plan for the Use and Management (PRUG) of Teidewhich ends on July 22, the time necessary to guarantee “a broader debate and greater consensus.”
Tenerife Film Commission and athletes question the new Plan for the Use and Management of Teide
Know more
As explained by Sí Podemos, the aim is to achieve a better adaptation of the regulatory text to the conservation needs of the National Park “taking into account all the institutions, the needs and expectations of the sectors involved and the citizens of Tenerife”. The amendment was also supported by Ciudadanos, while the PP abstained and the Canarian Coalition (CC) rejected it.
The agreement adopted with the amendment to the entirety also points out that “wide dissemination and pedagogy work aimed at citizens must be carried out to minimize the effects of disinformation that is being carried out from certain partisan sectors.”
In this sense, the councilor and island spokesperson for Sí Podemos Canarias in the Cabildo de Tenerife, María José Belda, has demanded the active involvement of the island government to “help spread and explain in detail to the public the details of the PRUG, since has been carrying out a media campaign by CC to try to create alarmism among the population with the idea that it is intended steal Teide to citizens, when the main purpose is to start up the PRUG to protect the natural values that make this space a National Park”.
The insular spokesperson for Sí Podemos Canarias criticizes that “the economic interests that CC has defended for years in the Teide National Park must begin to be restricted”. Belda criticizes that CC has requested in its motion the suspension of the period of allegations, since “what must be done is to motivate citizen participation in this debate, in an informed manner, so that they present all those allegations that they consider necessary”.
The party denounces the demagoguery used by CC “in its alarmist speech demanding the withdrawal of the PRUG, which makes us suspect that the true intention is to continue having Teide as a profitable product around which to generate business for the private benefit of a few people, and not as a National Park that is suffering a worrying degradation due to its oversized use for years”. Belda emphasizes that “the commitment to a sustainable model on Teide is incompatible with the theme park model that CC wants”.
The Teide PRUG, in the opinion of Sí Podemos, “must go ahead, working on it in a consensual manner with the public, collecting the allegations of the different groups, environmental associations and the population in general, so that it gets underway and does not remains in intentions reflected on paper”.
In the plenary session held last Friday, the councilor of CC Blanca Pérez pointed out that the current document “is very restrictive” and defended “a regulation agreed with the citizens and the affected sectors” to determine the activities that can be carried out in the National Park of Teide“. CC explained that it has held “numerous meetings with the groups and they all agree that the draft is bad”. If it goes ahead, she added, “it will cause serious damage to all citizens and to Tenerife.”
Blanca Pérez explained that CC has asked for the document to be withdrawn and for “true participation to be carried out with all groups and citizens to determine which activities can be carried out and which cannot. The easy thing is to prohibit, which is what the PSOE intends. The councilor of CC-PNC indicated that it is necessary to carry out a rigorous evaluation of the situation of the space and in a proportion and argued correspondence between the proposed measures and the expected effects and all of this, ordering a regime of public use and traditional activities that do not compromise the integrity of their values.
A controversial document
From the moment the PRUG entered the public information phase, numerous voices have criticized it, beyond parties such as the Canarian Coalition and the Popular Party. Nueva Canarias (NC) and Sí Podemos have also expressed their doubts regarding the text. The coordinator of NC in Tenerife, Valentín Correa, expressed the opinion that the new Plan “lacks effective solutions in terms of the material and human resources with which the area should be provided for its correct conservation” and joined the request for a Visitor load study. In addition, he rejected the possible construction of infrastructures outside the limits of the Park that serve as a parking lot and shuttle for the buses that transport visitors. El Teide, he said, “is part of our identity and does not deserve to house, especially in the El Portillo area, an excessive infrastructure that would cause irreversible damage to the natural environment and landscape of the island.”
The possible construction of these bus stations is not included in the PRUG document, but rather in the Mobility Plan of the Cabildo de Tenerife to respond to the new reality of the Park in the event that the Plan is approved and the regulations that are adopted are adopted. they are collected in it. One of them limits the circulation of vehicles at times of maximum influx of visitors to avoid the collapse of the roads. To do this, it provides that the visit will have to be made in buses and leave the car in those infrastructures outside the Park. In addition, in the PRUG the door is also opened for the Cabildo de Tenerife to establish that the car parks within the limits are paid. Circulation on the highways will be maintained free of charge and entrance will not be charged, but parking and buses may be paid.
Sectors directly affected by the limitations and prohibitions on their activities have also spoken out against the document, such as representatives of the audiovisual sector, beekeepers, athletes and hunters, among others.
A crowded and little guarded park
The Teide National Park receives more than four million visits each year, which makes it the third largest influx in the world and the one with the highest density given its size. Although the PRUG tries to order road traffic within the Park, it does not set limits on the number of visitors who can access it.
The Minister for Ecological Transition, in a speech at the Parliament of the Canary Islands on June 22 to defend the document, stated that the new plan will go from 65,000 visitors to the peak of Teide each year to more than 100,000, with a maximum of 50 every hour, 24 hours a day. With the current regulations, only 200 people a day can go up, divided into four shifts of 50 people, since it is one of the most fragile areas of the Park.
He also recognized that the area of the reserve areas, those that cannot be accessed because they enjoy the highest level of protection, will be reduced in the new PRUG from 6.5% to 5% of the total area of the park.
Scientists and ecologists have highlighted that given the pressure to which this Park is subjected, it is necessary to increase not only its protection, but also surveillance. Currently, only four Environment agents, dependent on the Cabildo de Tenerife, carry out these tasks in the 190 square kilometers of the Park. In addition, a few years ago the Civil Guard post was moved out of the Park and is now approximately an hour’s drive away.
Greater limitations and prohibitions without supervision will not be able to avoid cases such as the recently known case of a sports brand that carried out a video with some runners going down the slope of the Chinyero volcano, a protected area where you cannot drive off the slopes. Although the brand had permission from the Cabildo de Tenerife to make the videos, it did not have it to travel off the slopes, which has led to a sanction file being opened.
