The multicultural Festival defender of sustainability for the oceans and cetaceans, Arona SOS Atlántico, announced this week, at the stand of the Association of Tourist Municipalities of the Canary Islands [AMTC]at the International Tourism Fair 2023 [FITUR], in Madrid, which this year, between the months of September and November, will reinforce the expansion of its presence in the Canary Islands and Europe by visiting, for the first time, Brussels, together with Barcelona and El Hierro. The promoters of the festival, which this year is called Mundo Azul. Festival of Cultural Biodiversity for Sustainability, announced that the artist Macaco, one of the main icons of the song committed to respecting nature in this country, is the first figure to be confirmed on the musical poster for this edition.
They also highlighted the fact that Arona SOS Atlántico is beginning to reap the fruits of nine years of intense work with proposals from international organizations and tourist establishments in the Canary Islands to generate collaborative projects. The Festival, according to its creators, Santiago Gutiérrez and Martín Rivero, is in perfect harmony with the current objectives of the World Tourism Organization, which is committed to new modalities of cultural and sustainable tourism.
In the presentation of FITUR, the mayor of Arona, José Julián Mena, highlighted that Arona SOS Atlántico is “a strategic project for the municipality”. “It fits perfectly into the priority axes of our future strategy, which is committed to sustainability, digital transformation and the renovation of the accommodation plant”, he added.
For his part, David Pérez, CEO of Tourism of the Cabildo de Tenerife, announced that the festival will form part of the campaign to promote major events on the island, which will be launched on March 2 in European and American cities. The Councilor for Tourism of Arona, José Alberto Delgado qualified that Arona SOS Atlántico has positioned itself as a proposal with international projection.
One year before the UN and the 2030 Agenda
A year before international organizations laid the foundations for sustainable development goals, the Arona SOS Atlántico Festival already articulated culture as a way of proposing how essential care for the ecosystem is, with special emphasis on the marine environment. It was in 2014 when the Arona SOS Atlántico emerged in Tenerife, inspired by the permanent colony of 300 pilot whales that scientific studies show have inhabited the southern waters of the island, presumably for centuries.
A year later, in 2015, the United Nations approved the 17 Sustainable Development Goals [ODS], which inspire the 2030 Agenda. In this international approach, it was stated that culture was one of the fundamental tools to achieve the goals of a more just, balanced and healthy society. Edition after edition, the Festival has grown and deepened, more and more, in Culture as the fourth pillar of development, together with environmental sustainability, social inclusion and economic prosperity. In 2022, Arona SOS Atlántico carried out a calendar of 65 activities, from September to November, in Tenerife, La Gomera, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, Madrid and, for the first time, made the international leap, with actions in Paris. A team of 117 professionals participated in this edition, including creators, artists, teachers, technicians, scientists, activists and artisans.
More and more administrations and institutions recognize the importance of culture in economic and social change and support Arona SOS Atlántico, which has made it a top 10 festival in the Canary Islands and a national and international reference. The Festival has strengthened its raison d’être by approving, two years ago, the 2030 Canarian Agenda for Sustainable Development, which gives Culture a leading role, along with five other dimensions: people, the planet, prosperity, peace and alliances.
national reference
The Festival begins to reap the fruits and is being recognized outside the Canary Islands. The international premiere of Arona SOS Atlántico in 2022 led him to carry out a program of activities in Paris, in collaboration with prestigious institutions such as Unesco, the Cervantes Institute, the Luis Buñuel Spanish Lyceum or the Colombian embassy. In addition, Tenerife was, thanks to the Festival, the scene of the first PLAMTA National Convention, a platform that brings together more than fifty Spanish and foreign environmental organizations.
On the other hand, a group of underwater photographers, of various nationalities, who participated, with the help of Turismo de Tenerife, in the International Press & Fam Trip Diving, going around the island under the sea, discovered its marine beauty coinciding with unanimously in the high quality and cleanliness of the waters of Tenerife.
In the field of training, Arona SOS Atlántico organized the first Sustainability Conference: A Cultural Change and the Festival has been invited to present its experience in the next University Master’s Degree in Sustainable Cultural Management at the University of Valencia and in the recent National Congress of the leisure industry in the tourism sector.
Lastly, the Festival continues its commitment to the little ones, carrying out outreach activities in schools, and creating a library of educational notebooks, supervised by the biologist Alejandro de Vera and the marine fauna and naturalist photographer, Sergio Hanquet.
new alliances
The progressive work of this initiative obtains its fruits in each edition, incorporating new actors, venues and collaborators, which allow its unstoppable expansion. In this sense, the Festival has received, in recent months, proposals to design joint programs from important hotel establishments and councils from other islands, as well as synergies with international organizations such as the Ocean Born Foundation, which raises funds to combat effects of the climate emergency.
Visibility in 16 million people and 98 million impacts
For two years now, the Arona SOS Atlántico Festival has carried out, in Madrid, impressive campaigns to disseminate the marine wealth that this initiative defends, with images captured in Tenerife waters. This action, carried out on giant screens in Callao and Gran Vía, in the subway and on buses, achieves that some of the Festival’s objectives reach millions of people. Specifically, these social awareness initiatives, carried out in 2022 in Madrid, were made visible by 16 million people and registered 98 million impacts.
