The citizens of Lanzarote will take to the streets again on May 18 to join the regional call "Canarias has a limit" and demand, once again, substantial changes in the island's economic and tourism model that allow guaranteeing basic services to the population and respect for the natural environment and protected spaces, because "Lanzarote has a limit, and so does our patience".
The demonstration in Lanzarote, promoted by anonymous citizens who do not represent any group or political party, is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. at the Music Kiosk in the José Ramírez Cerdá park and will run along the avenues of the Arrecife coastline to the Cabildo headquarters, where a manifesto will be read with the demands of this social movement.
The movement "Lanzarote has a limit" again summons citizens after the successful demonstrations of April 20 and October 20, 2024. This mobilization focuses on denouncing the negative impacts of mass tourism on the
island territory and the quality of life of its inhabitants. Among its main demands is the need for a controlled tourism model, with degrowth plans, that guarantees access to essential public services such as housing, health, water and the conservation of biodiversity, thus ensuring the protection of the population and the natural environment.
Among its demands is also the need for a residence law that allows regulating population growth in a limited, fragile and fragmented territory such as the Canary Islands, as an essential measure to preserve the social, economic and environmental balance of the islands.
Unresolved problems
Despite the growing social concern, political responses have been insufficient and have been limited, in many cases, to speeches that appeal to commitment and sustainability without translating into concrete actions. Meanwhile, numerous structural problems persist that seriously affect the population and the territory: congestion of the health system, difficulty of access to housing, collapse in waste management, water scarcity for both human consumption and the agricultural sector, deterioration of the quality of life, inefficient public transport and the growing pressure on protected natural spaces, exposed to environmental infractions and a constant loss of biodiversity.
This social movement affirms that "the island is socially and environmentally collapsed", so it demands that the political and business power "change the mass tourism model for a regulated model, based on degrowth and the sustainable coexistence of the tourism industry with the general welfare of the population".
They assure that for this it is vital to start with the tourism moratorium, so demanded for decades and so ignored, to stop and rethink the tourism and economic model that we want from the Canarian population. In short, the mobilization seeks that Canarias bets on a model capable of responding to the needs of the population and is able to defend its natural spaces and recover the productivity of other economic sectors, to ensure that if tourism falls, Canarias remains.
From the citizen organization the entire population aware and sensitive to the problems that the island is going through is invited to join this third demonstration to continue demanding an island that deserves to be lived in and not just visited.
