Ecologistas en Acción Lanzarote criticizes and rejects the promotion of the Rally by the Cabildo and the town councils, totally antagonistic to the purposes of preservation and environmental care that should be imposed on the Island. Consequently, it should be an activity to disappear within the sports scene of Lanzarote, not only because of the emission of toxic gases, but also because of the undervalued noise pollution, the risk to wildlife, the disintegration of geological units, among others. It is not compatible to sponsor this attack, at the same time, that they have the audacity to promote the sustainability of Lanzarote and La Graciosa.
Already in 2022, the association warned that in recent years, both in Lanzarote and La Graciosa, the high number of sporting and leisure events, whether by land, sea or air, that have been held, many of them in highly sensitive natural spaces such as La Geria, El Jable, malpaíses, Risco de Famara, beaches, Los Ajaches,..., as a result of the promotion carried out by the local administrations themselves, highlighting the spectacular nature of the environment, biodiversity, volcanoes, landscape or beaches, which in turn leads to a considerable increase in participants, tourism and a large deployment of organizational infrastructures, whose environmental consequences are evident in natural areas.
Thus, for example, in the El Río swimming crossing, the number of participants went from 50 to 650, Desafío 8ª Isla from 130 in 2012 to 482 in 2021, Wild Race Lanzarote offers 600 registrations, Haría Extrem with more than a thousand participants in 2017, film shoots, advertising reports, concerts, etc., to which should be added the 332 active tourism activities (buggy routes, quad routes, cycle tourism, hang gliding, motor boating, hiking,...) registered in 2024, according to the Cabildo data center.
Ecologistas en Acción Lanzarote cannot allow that, as a Biosphere Reserve and a territory differentiated by its enormous natural heritage, these excessive activities are carried out without the protection of the environment prevailing over the permissiveness and exploitation of the territory for economic purposes; it considers that the capacity and intensity must be limited and environmental impact studies must be carried out because the ecological damage may be irreversible.
Both Lanzarote and La Graciosa have to be a world reference for the conservation of their biodiversity and their natural heritage and not for the ecological collapse due to anthropic pressure.