The island of La Graciosa also wanted to join the demonstration against mass tourism. The neighbors of the eighth island have not missed the opportunity to take to the streets to claim the rights of the Canary Islands.
The reading of the manifesto during this 20A has been based on the following words. "We join the demonstrations called this April 20, because "The Canary Islands Deserve a better management of protected natural spaces", they recalled in their manifesto.
"In La Graciosa, we have been working on the management for about twenty-five years. Allegations were presented to the PRUG that, for the most part, were not taken into account. A (PRUG) was approved in 2006 that did not recognize the reality of Graciosa. In 2011, a diagnosis was presented that said it was necessary to modify the PRUG, because tourist activity was not recognized, and it was not modified. In 2016, the justice system ended up annulling the PRUG because the PORN was missing. In 2023, the PORN was approved, and since then we have been without PRUG and without a management body," the document states.
"That La Graciosa lives from tourism, mainly, is a reality, that we suffer from tourist saturation some months of the year is also true, but it is also true that for 25 years we have been denouncing that it is necessary to manage, but no one has done anything, this remains the same or worse. Uncontrolled cat colonies."
"More and more vacation homes and less residential. More and more vehicles. Lack of management of tourist activity. More and more waste, more noise, more insecurity. Without a clean point, without sanitation, without fixing the water network. Destroyed roads. Cemetery without being able to expand. Problems of alignments and slopes. Conflict with the location of the livestock area. This is the reality that La Graciosa has been living for decades, the result of the policy that the institutions that have governed the island have made, and it will not be because it has not been denounced."
"La Graciosa was declared a natural park in 1986 and it was not until 2006 that its management and use plan was approved. It is in the management plan where the activities that take place on the island are planned, vehicles, waste, water, livestock, agriculture, urbanism, etc. In the management of this space, both the Teguise City Council, the Lanzarote Cabildo, the Government of the Canary Islands and the General State Administration have powers. Despite receiving almost half a million visitors, we are one of the only towns (together with Pedro Barba and Famara) that have been living within a Protected Natural Space WITHOUT a management body for 38 years. What did they create it for, if they don't have the slightest desire to manage it?", the neighbors state.
"This situation is called in scientific jargon 'Paper Park' or Park on paper... only on paper." For a better management of the natural park of the Chinijo Archipelago, for the defense of natural resources, for the management of tourist activity and the living conditions of the people of Graciosa, from La Graciosa we say 'The Canary Islands have a limit'", he concludes.