The director of the Timanfaya National Park, Pascual Gil, who reports to the Government of the Canary Islands, criticizes the management of the Art, Culture and Tourism Centers for the "collapse" and tourist "overcrowding" in the Mountains of Fire, the most visited center in Lanzarote.
During an interview with La Voz, the head of this space denounces that the National Park has been "trying to convince the Cabildo for more than 20 years that cars must be removed from the park", after the constant images of long queues blocking the road that connects Tinajo and Yaiza, at the entrance of Montañas del Fuego. The proposal given by the institution that protects this natural space is to carry out the entire visit in shuttle buses that leave from both municipalities and prevent private vehicles from saturating the area.
Gil explains that the queues are generating problems such as people urinating in the protected space, "elderly people and small children who cannot be locked in a car in the full sun in summer for two or three hours, which causes people to get out of the cars, enter the reserve area, block and spoil everything." In this sense, he explains that "the collapsed road" generates "road safety problems" and difficulty in carrying out evacuations in case of emergencies. "The problem is not only the cars, but also the pollution from the gases, because the radiators and gearboxes break, there are oil spills. It's a disaster," he continues.
The director of Timanfaya National Park, the fourth most visited in the country in 2023, points out that "all the money that is collected" from the visit to the Mountains of Fire, whose access for non-residents costs 20 euros per person, "nothing has an impact on the conservation of the park, but all of that stays in the Tourist Centers." In this sense, he adds that the conservation of this space "is financed with the taxes of all of us" and that these are used to "clean and repair the damage caused by the tourist center."
Gil highlights that this space, in the hands of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, "should be responsible for all the damage caused by these queues and this overcrowding." In addition, he urges the management of the Centers to comply with the governing plan so that the visit is "logical, pleasant and that something is learned about the park", instead of achieving overcrowding of the space, "with the sole objective of billing more and more money."
According to the Governing Plan for Use and Management of the Timanfaya National Park, the Hilario islet, where the Art, Culture and Tourism Center of Montañas del Fuego is located, only has a "maximum" capacity for eight buses and 90 vehicles. However, the images of vehicles waiting outside this protected natural space and on the public road that connects Tinajo with Yaiza show that there are many more cars that accumulate in the place at peak hours.
"The logical thing is that the Hilario islet should not be a parking lot, but that only buses arrive and people can walk freely on the shore, see the geological anomalies, enjoy the views of the park and right now the parking lot is worse than the parking lot of a shopping center at Christmas and it is a danger to people," defends the director of the National Park.
A control by schedules that does not arrive
Thus, the head of Timanfaya highlights that the National Parks Law says that "the entrance must be free" and that "it must have an impact on the socioeconomic development of the towns to which it belongs." For Gil, "the logical thing is that people go in their private vehicle to Yaiza or Tinajo, which are the two municipalities of the park, leave their car there, have a coffee, a cortado, a sandwich, whatever, and from there enter Hilario by bus and from Hilario the same bus would take you on the Route of the Volcanoes."
The director of this enclave points out that "during the previous legislature", with the Socialist Party in front, they assured them that they were going to carry it out, but "in the end they did not." Meanwhile, in this one, with the Canarian Coalition and the Popular Party "they tell us that they are not going to put shuttle buses, but a reservation center, but no measures have yet been taken to organize by hours." In this sense, he points out that "the main problem with the queues is that the number of visitors has increased." So much so that people "queue as they arrive and when the entire interior is full, the exterior road collapses" and the neighbors who want to move "cannot circulate."
Thus, he explains that "the curious thing" is that the Cabildo de Lanzarote has approved the pilot project with shuttle buses between Mancha Blanca and the natural spaces of Volcán del Cuervo and Caldera Blanca, within the Route of the Volcanoes, but "it does not put shuttle buses in the National Park, where the main problem is and the most protected, most vulnerable and most fragile site on the island. It depends on the Cabildo to put that shuttle bus."
In the event of refusing again to install the shuttle buses, the director of Timanfaya defends that "at least, control access by hours", so that people do not have to wait and "zero queues are generated inside and outside the park."
For the management of this space, the solution is on the roof of the Cabildo, which is the one that has the competence over the inter-island buses and over the center of Montañas del Fuego. Thus, he reveals that there are proposals from the years 2002, 2010, 2019 and 2024 to install these shuttle buses.
However, Gil points out that "all this situation that has been happening for years, seems that it may begin to change since for the first time the CACT are complying with the capacity of 90 vehicles established in the governing plan. It is also appreciated and it is expected that the Cabildo will implement a reservation center that will eliminate once and for all the long queues that give such a bad image to both the Park administration and the island."