SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 25 Aug. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Canarian Ecologist Federation Ben Magec-Ecologists in Action shows its “full support” for the claims of Canarian citizens against the urban project ‘Cuna del Alma’ in the port of Adeje and demands the precautionary stoppage of the works.
The collective warns in a note of the “irreversible disappearance of a space with high environmental value, with a unique flora and fauna and with a unique historical and ethnographic heritage as it contains several archaeological sites that should be rigorously protected.”
This type of “tourism megaprojects”, he continues, “does nothing but contribute to aggravate, even more, the current ecological, climatic and energy resource scarcity crisis”.
In his opinion, “betting on ‘more of the same’ in terms of tourism makes no sense in the current world situation, of a planetary crisis, making increasingly clear a model of tourism development linked to the massive occupation of the coast that has already caused irreparable environmental damage, fragmenting coastal ecosystems and seriously affecting habitats and endemic species, undermining tourist attractions in the long term and seriously contributing to the dangers of climate change”.
For this reason, the federation wants to warn that “planning irregularities and possibly infractions in environmental matters and against cultural heritage cannot continue, as is the case of the ‘Cuna del Alma’ project, with total impunity and before the passive gaze of the administrations responsible for allowing its execution”.
Thus, it requires the Cabildo de Tenerife, the Adeje City Council and the Government of the Canary Islands itself “not to look the other way and come out of their complicit silence and defend the general interest.”
“The biodiversity present in this space and the historical and archaeological heritage belongs to all the Canary Islands and the Canary Islands. Putting this ecosystem at the center is putting people at the center, it is putting life at the center,” he highlights.
Along these lines, he points out that the public has demonstrated against this project –there is a popular encampment in the area where the works are being carried out– “and this cannot be ignored in a supposed democracy” like the one in Spain.
SUPPORT PROTESTERS
In this way, Ben Magec-Ecologistas en Acción expresses its full support for both the people who “bravely stood in front of the shovels, putting their lives at risk, and those who raised their voices in front of the Cabildo de Tenerife on the 20th “.
From the federation they demand the stoppage of the work and the withdrawal of the construction companies and that “the heritage begins to be inventoried, measures are put in place to assess the damage and the restoration of the place to its original state is demanded.”
He also criticizes the “fallacy” that this type of action “is going to bring wealth and prosperity to the people of the Canaries” when the reality is that the archipelago continues to be one of the regions with the highest rates of poverty and inequality in the entire State, with a structural unemployment rate around 20%, “precarious and low-skilled jobs”.
“Quite the contrary, the possible benefits of this unnecessary work will end up in the coffers of foreign companies increasingly specialized in speculation and lack of scruples in the face of the destruction of our territory,” the environmentalists detail.
Faced with this situation, the group points out, “there is only the alternative of decreasing tourism through a new moratorium on the implementation of new infrastructures that are so polluting and unsustainable.”
Not in vain, “mitigation and adaptation to climate change, announced so many times by the regional government, is not compatible with continuing to bet on the implementation of new hotel developments and the increase in accommodation beds,” they point out.
