AGI – Hundreds of people are ready to take to the streets to protest against mass tourism in the Canary Islands. Protesters are calling for a rethink of the Spanish archipelago’s tourism industry and a freeze on tourist numbers, arguing that the current, decades-old model has made life inaccessible and unsustainable from an environmental point of view for the local population.
The protests – which will take place under the banner “Canarias holds a limit” (The Canaries have a limit) – are supported by environmental groups including Greenpeace, WWF, Ecologists in Action, Friends of the Earth and SEO/Birdlife.
“We have reached the point where the balance between the use of resources and the well-being of the population has broken down, especially in the last year,” said Víctor Martín, spokesperson for the collective Canarias se Agota (The Canaries have had enough) , which is helping coordinate Saturday’s protests across the eight islands.
Eleven members of “Canarias se agota” are already on hunger strike for a week to protest against the construction of two large luxury complexes in the south of Tenerife, which they define as “illegal” and totally useless.
Last year, 13.9 million people visited the islands, which have a population of 2.2 million inhabitants. Although tourism represents around 35% of the archipelago’s GDP – with an income of 16.9 billion euros in 2022 alone – local people say the industry is stressing natural resources and forcing them out of the rental market.
Data from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics shows that 33.8% of people in the Canary Islands are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, the highest percentage for any region except Andalusia.
Martín said the regional government’s continued focus on tourism at a time when the climate emergency was leading to cuts to water supplies made no sense. “The question [di acqua] it is increasing in urban areas where there are more tourists,” he said. “We’ve had a very dry winter and a water emergency has already been declared in Tenerife and “There will be restrictions if it doesn’t rain more this month, but here right now it’s 36°C. This is all unsustainable and means we won’t be not even able to maintain normal levels of tourism. Yet the authorities and businesses here are trying to stick to this model.”
“The problem is not the tourists,” he said. “It is a model built around – and with the connivance of – a business class that does not want to listen to what needs to be done, and with a political class that serves that business class instead of serving all citizens.”
He said a complete rethink of the Canary Islands’ tourism model cannot wait. “What we ask for is very simple: given that tourism is the main economic activity and the cause of all these problems, we want an immediate stop to these two megaprojects”he said, referring to the developments in Tenerife.
Fernando Clavijo, regional president of the Canary Islands, said his government was already taking action. “All actions taken by this government are based on a review of this model,” he told reporters this week. “The Canary Islands tourism model has been successful, but obviously, as with everything, there are things that could be improved.”
Overtourism has become a major problem in many Spanish cities and regions, sparking protests and backlash in Barcelona and leading authorities in Seville to consider charging visitors to explore the Andalusian city’s famous Plaza de España.
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