The Casa de los Capitanes de La Laguna hosted this Monday the presentation of the Ecotours tourist route program, which will turn the municipality’s Northeast Region into a focus of natural, heritage and agricultural interest until February.
The Councilor for Tourism, Idaira Afonso; the person in charge of Rural Development, Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Aitor López; and the representative of the company Cultania, Adrián Negrín, presented the details of this initiative of the City Council of La Laguna, as part of its strategy to value this region, through a sustainable and environmentally friendly formula.
From next November 14, and for four months, up to 30 guided walking routes can be carried out, at different times and both on weekdays and on weekends, with which to visit the most outstanding points of the rich cultural heritage and natives of Tejina, Valle de Guerra, Jóver and La Barranquera.
Idaira Afonso explained during her speech that the Ecotours routes “are going to represent an unprecedented commitment to the visibility and defense of the natural, rural and agrarian values of the Northeast Region. They are going to show the patrimonial, natural and ethnographic wealth of La Laguna, because we are much more than a World Heritage City, and it will serve to publicize our traditional wealth”.
These routes will allow 750 people, both residents and visitors, to get to know the landscapes and agricultural tradition of the area in depth, showing its natural and landscape values, promoting the defense, protection and care of these natural and historical attractions.
In this sense, Idaira Afonso pointed out that La Laguna is committed “to a model, consolidated in the Tourism Master Plan for the Northeast Region, which prioritizes sustainable and responsible development and, above all, promotes the defense of environmental and social values; that rules out systems with rapid growth and high exposure to external factors, and that prioritizes actions that place citizens at the center. We want to value our wealth, but also take care of our environment and the people who visit us, contributing new elements of attraction and interest, with a very differentiated tourism”, he assured.
Aitor López underlined “the transversal work between different areas of the City Council”, in order to complete the program. From the Rural Development area, he stated that it is an “unpublished and necessary work for the area, to advance knowledge and dissemination of the landscape, natural agricultural and fishing values of the Northeast Region, and the history of the peoples that integrate it. ”.
“The commitment to sustainability is key in our rural development strategy, it is essential for the enhancement of natural resources and the protection of the rural and marine environment, which provides us with food, which helps to create and promote the local economy. With initiatives like this we want to contribute to its sustainable development and meet the objectives established in the European Green Deal and the ‘From farm to table’ strategy”, recalled Aitor López.l
Finally, the representative of the company Cultania, Adrián Negrín, argued that the objective of the routes is “to enhance the identity of these places and that the residents feel represented. Tejina has a huge identity potential in the municipality, we will visit its gofio mills or areas with a great interest for bird watching. Valle de Guerra has a great legacy for its cultivation areas, and very important ethnographic areas such as the Casa de Cartas. And the areas of Jóver and La Barranquera stand out for their proximity to the sea”, highlighting that it is one of the points where “the marine environment is still lived authentically and we will complement it with archeology and ancient crops that grew in the area. I think we have achieved very complete routes, which are adapted to all audiences”, he concluded.
