The Cabildo of Lanzarote hosted the seminar “The limits of the planet. Lanzarote and its limits” on December 15 and 16, with great success in attendance. A meeting organized by the Lanzarote Biosphere Reserve and the Club of Rome in Spain, which served to reflect on the capacity we have as a territory, establishing a parallel story between the limits of the planet and those of our island.
The Minister of Environment and the Biosphere Reserve of Lanzarote, Nicolás Saavedra, opened this seminar, highlighting the importance of the binomial “humanity and territory” and that there is “a reasonable well-being of the population that does not put the biosphere at risk or mortgage the survival of future generations.”
“The achievement of sustainable development depends on the changes of peoples and their development policies, on changes in the systems of economic and social exchange strategies, as well as on the burden that different territories can bear, and we see this in the limitations of our territory: the island,” Saavedra pointed out.
“We must look at our island as a unique space, because it is, just like the planet we inhabit. There is no planet B,” added the councilor, inviting us to reflect on the capacity we have as a territory and the limitations of Lanzarote and the planet.
The “Meadows Report” and the “collapse of humanity”
The first day of the seminar also included the presence of the vice president of the International Club of Rome and member of the Spanish Chapter, Carlos Álvarez Pereira, who gave the presentation 'Limits and beyond: 50 years after 'The Limits to Growth', what did we learn, and what continues?'. In it, he reviewed the history of the Club of Rome and spoke about the so-called “Meadows Report” or “The Limits to Growth” that this international organization published in 1972 and which generated a “great controversy”, as it warned of the “collapse of humanity” if unlimited growth was maintained.
This publication offered different scenarios on the evolution of humanity based on variables such as population growth, pollution or the availability of resources. “It is our responsibility as humanity to choose which paths we take,” said Álvarez Pereira, who believes that society “learned nothing” from this report. Now, 50 years later, the Club of Rome has launched a new publication under the name “Beyond the Limits”, in which it maintains its message, the conclusions of which were also presented at the seminar held in Lanzarote.
The biophysicist and scientist Donella Meadows (creator of the report “The Limits to Growth”), the dynamics of systems and how to influence a complex system were discussed by the biotechnologist and technician of the Entretantos Foundation, Gabriela Vázquez, who invited those present to “imagine that sustainable world in which we would like to live.”
In addition, both Gabriela Vázquez and the vice president of the International Club of Rome, Carlos Álvarez Pereira, participated in a colloquium on 'The role of women in systems science', moderated by Ascensión Robayna, founding partner and member of the agroecological base cooperative project SAT El Jable.
Stories about Lanzarote and its limits
Daniel Ruiz López, UN coordinator and member of the Canary Group of the Club of Rome, was in charge of opening the presentations of the second day of the seminar “The limits of the planet. Lanzarote and its limits” and he did so with a conference entitled 'The perfect storm. The convergence of the environmental, energy and social crises', in which he spoke of the “imminent environmental collapse” and the need to go from an ideology of growth to one of degrowth, from competition to cooperation and from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism.
The meeting closed with the round table “Stories about Lanzarote and its limits”, which included the participation of Famara Guadalupe Hernández, graduated in Geography and Territorial Planning from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC); Mario Ferrer Peñate, historian, journalist and coordinator of Digital Memory of the Cabildo of Lanzarote; Miguel Ángel Robayna Fernández, professor of Philosophy and Ethics in EEMM, activist and member of the Canarian Foundation for critical thought La Colectiva and Muévete por el Clima; Jonathan Sicilia, urban planner and founder of URBANFIX; and Antonio González Viéitez, economist and member of the Scientific Cabinet of the Biosphere Reserve of Lanzarote.
The Lanzarote that put a stop to uncontrolled tourist development, the Island Plan for Territorial Planning of 1991 and the legacy of César Manrique, who raised awareness against tourist excesses, focused much of the debate at this round table, in which the importance of continuing to bet on an island model based on sustainability and limits was emphasized.
Those people who were unable to attend the seminar “The limits of the planet. Lanzarote and its limits” and who are interested in it, can see it in full on the Youtube channel of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, through this link.
