The César Manrique Foundation opposes mining in El Jable de Muñique, a space of incalculable environmental value, located in the municipality of Teguise. The entity presented allegations last February allegations against a project promoted by a company on the island "for the use of jable" in the Hoya de la Plata sand quarry for 15 years.
El Jable is a strip covered in sand 21 kilometers long and 90 square kilometers that crosses Lanzarote from one coast to another. As the group Ecologists in Action already highlighted, this extraction affects "several environmental protection figures." Among them, the Foundation recalls that the island of Lanzarote is a World Biosphere Reserve and that this project is within the protection zone, also called the "buffer zone of the Risco de Famara core zone" of that declaration.
The FCM states that the guidelines of the Biosphere Reserve figure "are aimed at implementing environmental sustainability policies" to contribute to the "conservation of the values" that support its consideration as such. Thus, it has highlighted that "sustaining" this recognition "requires a change of perspective in decision-making about the territory," including the exploitation of natural resources, and that "authorizing new or repeated extractions" in this space, despite being protected by the Mining Law, "does not contribute to its conservation."
In addition, it adds that this space is classified as a special protection area for birds, known as SPA, and belonging to the Natura 2000 Network. This implies "usage restrictions" due to the existence of birds. Despite this, the Foundation warns that "unadapted plans do not contemplate" the restrictive uses that are foreseen for spaces within this protection figure.
In addition, this place is also part of the "priority area for reproduction, feeding, dispersion and concentration of threatened species of avifauna," such as the houbara or Canary bustard, which is in danger of extinction, or the Saharan corridor and the stone curlew, which are protected by a special regime. In addition to other birds such as the Egyptian vulture, the common vulture or the short-toed lark.
El Jable, a "finite" natural resource
In the allegations presented by the César Manrique Foundation, it also echoes "various studies" by the Physical Geography and Environment Group of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), which warns that the sedimentary complex of Famara and El Jable has suffered a "process of reduction of the area covered by sands," among other things, due to extractive activities for construction and agricultural uses. Thus, it reveals that "the dune field has been systematically disappearing, among other causes, due to human intervention."
Effects on the landscape
Likewise, the aforementioned document highlights the effect on the landscape that the extraction of jable has on an island in which tourism "represents a very important source of income" and one of whose "differential" attractions lies "precisely in its unique landscape." "El Jable reveals marked traces of human activity, with a permanent loss of the quality of environmental conditions, without possible recovery even when protective or corrective measures are adopted."
In addition, it states that "the nature of the impacts of this type of activity, in addition to being cumulative, forms an increasingly degraded area." In this sense, it adds that "the scars of sand extraction activities at present have remained as highly degraded spaces, with impacts on geomorphology and topographic modification, making them unusable for any other use, with slopes in some cases, of up to 10 meters high, which constitutes a risk of accidents."
Finally, the Foundation indicates that the approval of the Mining Law, of the year 1973, occurred in "a time in which considerations about sustainability, the limitation of natural resources and the climate emergency were non-existent" and "would deserve an update."
At the same time, it urges institutions to contribute to "stopping this type of activity through their intervention and in attention to environmental objectives," whose effects "will not be net but cumulative since the area has different concessions."