canarina foundation tenerife environment

Tenerife’s environmental crunch: an interview with Canarina

Compiled with the help of artificial intelligence, based on Spanish-language information. Source below the article.

The Foundation’s Mission

The Canarina Foundation is dedicated to protecting nature and the environment across the Canary Islands, though its focus is primarily on Tenerife, where its president, Striewe, believes the most serious problems are concentrated. The foundation is critical of how sustainability has been forgotten on a socio-environmental level, and argues that certain environmental terms have been perverted by the institutions.

“Our tone is moderate. We take part in and support all the protests and demonstrations that have been taking place across the Archipelago in recent years. We are aligned with those movements, but it’s true that our tone is a little different. We try to be a bridge entity, able to speak to both sides, and not just focus on protest, but also on proposals. Fortunately, we have funds that allow us to develop projects offering alternatives to the model we criticise. We don’t want to just criticise; we want to move towards alternatives. We have financial resources, a farm, the ability to hire staff and develop projects.”

Key Problems: Biodiversity Loss and Saturation

“First and foremost is the loss of biodiversity, the brutal regression we are seeing in our ecosystems and the life within them. This is linked to urbanisation, the spread of concrete, and the encroachment on protected natural spaces, which are essentially becoming urban parks. They intend to build right up to the very edge of them.”

“There’s also the issue of overpopulation and overcrowding. We are ever more numerous, both tourists and residents. This has consequences in terms of land and resource consumption. I’m talking about the land itself, with landfills that are completely overflowing, as well as atmospheric pollution and, mainly, marine pollution, with all those discharges and outfalls causing health problems. In short, it’s saturation. Too many people and the whole chain that brings with it: consumption of resources and pressure on the land and nature.”

The Perversion of Environmental Language

“Of course, the institutions have adopted certain terms as their own, completely stripping them of their meaning. They talk about sustainability, or about many of the demands that have been voiced on the street, such as the eco-tax. They introduce an eco-tax, but it’s not a real eco-tax. They talk about sustainability when what they’re doing isn’t sustainable. The sustainability we understand has three legs: the economic, the social, and the environmental. Right now, it’s clear that the focus is being placed solely on the economic side. Moreover, it’s being done through a single strategy: tourism. The economy isn’t being diversified, and diversifying could also help strengthen the environmental and social legs.”

“For example, with the island’s food sovereignty. We are extremely dependent on food imports. Basically, if another pandemic comes, we run out of supplies, or a third world war breaks out, we’ll be left with nothing. That’s why I talk about environmental and social sustainability, but also territorial sovereignty. Being a bit more autonomous and capable of supplying ourselves with the basics: food, water, and energy. And we could do it.”

“We also talk about an energy transition while we cover potentially cultivable land with solar panels owned by large corporations. What we could do is implement a decentralised model, with solar panels on rooftops, where everyone generates their own electricity. We say we’re doing a lot, but in reality, we’re doing the opposite. And as with sustainability, the energy transition, or the eco-tax, many terms are being prostituted and perverted.”

The Need for Limits on Tourism

“There is a kind of rejection of putting limits on tourists. Anything about restricting is frowned upon because we’ve internalised the idea that they are gods and must be able to do whatever they want, for fear they will stop coming. Nobody is going to stop coming because of that. Setting limits, restricting, and regulating means adding value. Tenerife cannot be an open bar where everyone can do whatever they want.”

“On the other hand, it is also interpreted by local people as meaning they won’t be able to move about freely. Maybe I haven’t been to Teide for a year or two, but the moment I’m told I can’t go, I get annoyed and object. I believe there should be regulations that differentiate between residents and visitors. There are a lot of us, and if we all do as we please, we’ll end up destroying the resource. Even if it’s unpopular and even if we risk some tourists not coming. If they stop visiting us because of that, we don’t want them. Setting limits and restricting is about valuing what we have and caring for it.”

Three Urgent Measures

“A tourism and holiday-let moratorium, now. That’s the first thing. Stop to rethink what kind of model we want. Then, food sovereignty now. And energy sovereignty. Food and energy sovereignty seem to me to be absolutely fundamental. Those three things: stop, redirect, and diversify the economy towards food and energy sovereignty. Those would be the three most important decisions I would make.”

A Dystopian Outlook

“If we don’t stop, we’re going to have an island where natural spaces are battered parks, used super-intensively. The only nature left will be highly degraded natural spaces. I also believe there will be a displacement of the local population. If the housing issue continues like this, Tenerife will be a place where only a few can live. And there will be fewer and fewer Canarian people, sadly. The scenario I’m imagining seems quite dystopian to me, a dystopia I don’t like picturing.”

Education and the Next Generation

“We do environmental education work with schools in the peripheral areas of the metropolitan area, or in places where they sometimes lack resources. You notice there are many children who don’t know their own island, who have never been on a trip to the Anaga Rural Park. We’re talking about schools in La Laguna or Santa Cruz. We are absolutely convinced that to love something, you must know it. Defending this territory means knowing it. Once you know it, you can value it, love it, and then defend it.”

“We have so many species and ecosystems that exist nowhere else on the planet, and we are losing them. The ideal of nature we grew up with, or that has been sold to us, is different, but we must learn to appreciate what we have here. It is completely unique and is no less valuable for it.”

“They have much more information than we had in our generation. Ten years ago, I don’t remember influencers talking about the environment. Today, there are, and they have a huge number of followers. I think the environmental discourse is more present and there is indeed more awareness. The problems were already there thirty years ago, but perhaps they weren’t as visible as they are now. The sheer gravity of what we’re facing right now means there is more awareness, because you can no longer turn a blind eye. It’s no longer the discourse of four sensitive people seeing something most don’t yet see. It’s there for everyone to see. There is more awareness, but also more demotivation, perhaps frustration.”

Restoring the Mid-Level Landscape

“First, protect what little remains. There are many natural spaces where restoration work can be carried out. The thermophilous forest is an ecosystem that has practically disappeared. Only a few patches remain, and we can’t even begin to imagine what it was like. It is the most battered ecosystem because it coincides with the mid-altitude farmlands that were ploughed and cleared in the past for agriculture. And right now, with the abandonment of the countryside, I believe it is urgent to recover these mid-level zones and link this to food sovereignty. We need to return to the land using new techniques that involve the ecological restoration of the original ecosystems, and that this rehabilitation serves as a framework for farming differently, without chemicals or fertilisers, using the ecosystem as a guide. For me, restoring this mid-level belt, recovering the thermophilous forest as much as possible, and using it as a framework for regenerative agriculture would be hugely important.”

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