Tens of thousands of people are protesting across the Canary Islands to call for an urgent rethink of the Spanish archipelago’s tourism strategy and a freeze on visitor numbers, arguing that the decades-old model has made life unaffordable and environmentally unsustainable for residents.
The protests, which are taking place under the banner “Canarias tiene un límite” – The Canaries have a limit – are backed by environmental groups including Greenpeace, WWF, Ecologists in Action, Friends of the Earth and SEO/Birdlife.
“We’ve reached the point where the balance between the use of resources and the welfare of the population here has broken down, especially over the past year,” said Víctor Martín, a spokesperson for the collective Canarias se Agota – The Canaries Have Had Enough – which helped to coordinate protests on Saturday across the eight islands.
Eleven members of Canarias se Agota have already been on hunger strike for a week to protest against the construction of two large luxury developments in southern Tenerife, which they describe as illegal and totally unnecessary.
Figures from Spain’s National Statistics Institute show that 33.8% of people in the Canaries are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, the highest proportion for any region except Andalucía.
Martín said the regional government’s continuing focus on tourism at a time when the climate emergency was leading to cuts to water supplies made no sense.
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Tens of thousands of people are protesting across the Canary Islands to call for an urgent rethink of the Spanish archipelago’s tourism strategy and a freeze on visitor numbers, arguing that the decades-old model has made life unaffordable and environmentally unsustainable for residents.
The protests, which are taking place under the banner “Canarias tiene un límite” – The Canaries have a limit – are backed by environmental groups including Greenpeace, WWF, Ecologists in Action, Friends of the Earth and SEO/Birdlife.
“We’ve reached the point where the balance between the use of resources and the welfare of the population here has broken down, especially over the past year,” said Víctor Martín, a spokesperson for the collective Canarias se Agota – The Canaries Have Had Enough – which helped to coordinate protests on Saturday across the eight islands.
Eleven members of Canarias se Agota have already been on hunger strike for a week to protest against the construction of two large luxury developments in southern Tenerife, which they describe as illegal and totally unnecessary.
Figures from Spain’s National Statistics Institute show that 33.8% of people in the Canaries are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, the highest proportion for any region except Andalucía.
Martín said the regional government’s continuing focus on tourism at a time when the climate emergency was leading to cuts to water supplies made no sense.
The original article contains 859 words, the summary contains 228 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!