SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 20 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Cabildo de Tenerife, through the services of the Natural Environment and Safety Management area, installs 300 biocide baits in a green area of the municipality of Adeje of approximately 15,000 square meters after having identified a focus of subterranean termites (Reticulitermes flavipes) .
In addition to these stations, it is planned that approximately one thousand control posts will be placed to determine the perimeter.
“We are not going to spare any effort to stop this new outbreak of termites”, pointed out the president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martín, who added that “experience shows the resistance of this plague to be able to be eradicated and therefore the need for public administrations mobilize immediately, complementing a fight that has been going on for years”.
In this regard, the president recalled that “the Cabildo de Tenerife and the Government of the Canary Islands have invested more than two million euros” and are going to continue increasing the economic allocations to fight against a plague “which, if not controlled, can affect homes, historical heritage or vegetation”.
Along these lines, he concluded by stating that 300 biocide baits and more than 2,000 location stakes are already being placed to attack this focus “with the same intensity” as is done in the north of Tenerife.
“The technicians of the project for the eradication and control of this plague on the island, at the request of the municipal technicians, have carried out a visual inspection of the affected area, evidencing the presence of the plague in this isolated location from the rest of the existing foci on the island. island, almost all of them located between Tacoronte and some neighborhoods of La Laguna,” said the councilor for the area, Isabel García.
On behalf of the Adeje City Council, the Councilor for Ecological Transition, Manuel Luis Méndez Martín, commented that “from the first day that one of the municipal engineers working in the park detected the presence of termites, the competent bodies of the Cabildo and the Government of the Canary Islands to act immediately”.
He pointed out that “the coordination between the institutions is permanent and daily, the City Council staff is following the instructions of the expert teams to tackle this situation, it is an urban park that has been closed to the public for some years for the development of a productive forest.
A COLONY OF MORE THAN FIVE YEARS
The minister has also insisted that “the area affected has not yet been determined exactly, but the presence of insects is located within an urban area, which significantly reduces the risk of affecting the natural environment”, while He added that “according to the initial estimate of the experts, the colony detected is in no case less than five years old, with a preliminary estimate of the time of involvement between eight and five years.”
García has also pointed out that “all the intervention protocols of the Insular Plan for the Eradication of Subterranean Termites have been activated, so that, based on the discovery, measures have been taken to avoid the spread of the plague to other parts of the municipality.”
These measures have consisted of a phase prior to the start of work in establishing the restriction of access to the affected area, controlling the transit of goods and prohibiting the extraction of plant remains from the park.
The Cabildo de Tenerife has already eliminated more than 500 termite outbreaks on the island of Tenerife, out of the 8,192 baits installed with biocide.
In total, some 12,386 wooden stakes have been installed on the island to detect the presence of ‘Reticulitermes flavipes’ and more than 8,000 stations with the biocide in those points infected by the plague, which reaches a total of more than 20,000 control points .
A budget of about two million euros has been earmarked for this.
But, in addition, indicated the Minister of Management of the Natural Environment, Isabel García, “an early detection and rapid intervention system is being carried out, through which any citizen can notify the possible presence of the species, after the warning mobilizes a team to check if it is the species, and in that case the necessary treatment is carried out to guarantee the elimination of the population”.
