-Certain agricultural areas of La Geria are disappearing and their typology is being changed with impunity. Were you aware of this?
-We have been denouncing this for some time. The changes are associated with changes in land ownership. The Foundation has been concerned about La Geria for some time, we have been placing it in the public opinion for some time and we warn not only of the risks derived from a strong action on the road, but also of land changes, which were also producing extractions of rofe that served to finance the land that was being acquired. The 10-meter layers were being left at less than one meter and effectively the typology of the walls was also being changed, even filling much more than the geomorphology of the area usually is. If these processes of artificialization of La Geria continue, we will certainly have a notable change in the landscape. That is why it is important that we have a Use and Management Plan that determines what actions can be carried out and that at the same time pays attention to something that is usually neglected, and that is that these agricultural landscapes can only be conserved if the traditional use is reinforced. The moment there is no necessary support for agriculture and traditional uses, the landscape becomes banalized, artificialized and all these types of processes associated with aid, with aid funds that ultimately serve to destroy the landscape, will occur.
-It seems that this is not only happening in La Geria, but is already starting in the areas of Tinguatón, Tinajo, etc. But on the other hand, what do you think of the decision of the accidental president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Manuel Fajardo, to deny the exploitation of the Papagayo Arena hotel, in Playa Blanca?
-After the summer break, we were all catching up. Indeed...
-How is this action viewed from the perspective of the FCM?
-It is viewed on the one hand with the logical satisfaction that the Cabildo produces after a period of instability and uncertainty in what concerns the policies in territorial matters, it seems that it begins to show a determined will to address the urban and territorial issue of the Island in different directions. One of them, naturally, is to address the 'duties' that we had to do in the matter of the Special Territorial Plan, to get up to date, but also another of them, and no less important, is in a traditional deficit that we have been dragging in the Island, which is everything that concerns urban discipline. This is a fundamental issue when it comes to addressing the issues of control of tourist growth. If the policies of everything that concerns the investigation of licenses of construction processes and the pertinent actions are not closely followed, we will certainly see ourselves with problems such as those that are emerging these days in the media. There the action has to be decided by the administration, there has to be inter-administrative coordination, it is fundamental, because the competences are distributed and at the same time I think it is desirable that inspections and sanctions occur at the opportune moments so that the policies of accomplished facts do not make us, in short, we can act but the actions are irreversible.
-In any case, it seems that some punishment is necessary so that these establishments do not dare to open their doors without the corresponding opening license.
-Of course, but the experience we have in other cases, in other hotels on the Island, that are not demolished later, continue forward. That is why it is absolutely essential that the administrations work in coordination, that they fulfill their obligations, that they provide means for the functions of inspection and sanction and that they act in a timely manner. That is to say, a hotel that does not have to be operating at this time, should not have opened the activity.
-Nor start the works without the necessary permits.
-Indeed.
-It seems that some more hotel establishments are in the same circumstances, however here there is an administration that is responsible for this situation, the Government of the Canary Islands from the Ministry of Tourism that also strongly subsidized one of these hotels that are allegedly outside the law.
-For activities in depressed areas. But of course, in any case, it must be insisted that it is necessary that the law is complied with but that it is made to comply well, in the time and in the manner due, because although it must be made to comply at any time, it is desirable that it be at the opportune moment because it is also positive for everyone that the administration itself creates legal certainty to all those entrepreneurs in the hotel sector or in the activity that it is and that when someone undertakes a process, which is a process that is deviating, that work is immediately stopped, so that they do not continue so that irregular situations are not associated with other labor problems or any other type that are mixed in the debate and that are not relevant.
-Don't you think that when there are suspicions and some even hide behind certain silences and legal arguments, the Cabildo should also have in its hands the possibility of subrogating the competences?
-The responsibility is certainly not of the Cabildo, not at all. The responsibility lies with the Government of the Canary Islands and the municipalities.
-No, but just as it is being considered to include in the Reform of the Statute that the Government of the Canary Islands can subrogate the competences when a Cabildo does not function well, we also have to have the security that the Cabildo, being closer, can do the same, in addition to being able to carry out the inspections.
-That's it, it's a process of reflection that we have shared for some time. The Cabildo has insistently requested information from tourist town halls that have not provided it in a timely manner, therefore it was very difficult to have the necessary data to know the compliances and non-compliances in its case of the moratorium and at this point, and given that in certain cases inter-administrative collaboration is not possible, of course that... In addition, as the law provides in certain cases subrogating the competences can be a guarantee of compliance with what is dictated through the urban instruments and that are supported by a large majority in the Island. In this sense, of course it is a brave initiative and at the same time it can be positive to enforce the regulations that we have all demanded from the administration.
-By the way, Fernando Prats has won the competition for the drafting of the Special Territorial Plan.
-The truth is that it is good news in a double direction. In the first place because it offers guarantees that the Island can continue working in what refers to all the creation of technical documents and ideological line in the direction in which it has been working for more than 15 years and on the other hand, also to us it produces a special satisfaction because in moments of political uncertainty and also of uncertainty with respect to what was going to be the action of the administration, specifically of the Cabildo, in what concerns the containment of growth in the Island and something that we will have to address without much delay, which is the re formulation of the tourist model. That is to say, a creative phase, not only defensive, but of updating the tourist model, because the Foundation at the time made the decision that to save that void that was being produced in Lanzarote, we had to recover the work of Fernando Prats. And this decision that was not well understood in certain areas, we think that it is bearing fruit because at a time when it is necessary to do very important urban duties for the Island and that we have very little time to do them, all the work that from the contracting of civil society, in this case of the Foundation, Fernando Prats has been doing, can be poured into the public administration.
-He knows very well what we are talking about.
-Indeed, he knows it, he has caught up, there is a roadmap that says what things have to be done and how they have to be addressed and if at this time there is also the political will as it seems that there is to develop it, I think that, in short, we have lost the time, but we have not lost it so much.
