Caraballo defends that Lanzarote must decrease: "We must avoid an island of 200,000 residents"

The candidate of Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista (NC-BC) for the Presidency of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Yoné Caraballo, has warned that the island must decide "what Lanzarote we want to leave to future generations" and has called for a change of direction to prevent the current tourism model from leading to an island of 200,000 residents.

Lanzarote has gone from 96,310 inhabitants in the year 2000 to 166,878 in 2025, that is, more than 70,000 additional residents in just 25 years. In 2024 alone, the population increased by 3,648 people, 2.2%, the highest relative growth in the Canary Islands. "We cannot accept as normal that thousands of people join a territorially limited island every year while we continue to expand the tourist offer and lack the most basic thing, housing security. If we maintain this pace, 200,000 inhabitants will cease to be a warning and will become a reality sooner rather than later," warns Caraballo.

The current deputy for Lanzarote believes that "we cannot continue confusing economic growth with unlimited population growth, tourist beds, land consumption, and pressure on natural resources." In his opinion, "Lanzarote is reaching limits that are no longer theoretical, but visible in housing, water, roads, waste, energy, territory, and the very capacity of natural spaces."

"There are parties, like CC and PP, that continue to defend an increasingly populated Lanzarote because they understand that more population means more labor, more consumption, and more business for the tourism sector. We defend the exact opposite, that the economy should be at the service of the island and those who live on it, and not the island at the service of the tourism sector without sense," he maintains.

The Canarian leader believes that the question Lanzarote must ask itself is not how many people it can physically support, but "how many people it can accommodate while guaranteeing a dignified life, access to housing, quality public services, and the conservation of its natural resources."

 “We need to de-grow to live better”

Caraballo defends that Lanzarote must incorporate the idea of "degrowth" into the political debate. "Degrowth means ceasing to grow where growth destroys the conditions that make the island habitable. It means consuming less territory, depending less on fossil fuels, reducing tourist pressure, protecting water, and ensuring that the wealth generated remains in Lanzarote," he explains.

In this regard, he considers that "it is not possible to face the housing crisis, the climate emergency, and territorial saturation while keeping the logic of unlimited tourism growth intact."

"If every year we need more beds, more workers, more housing, more cars, more roads, more water, and more energy to sustain tourism, we have to ask ourselves where that model ends. And the answer is evident: in ecological, territorial, and social disaster," he points out.

Tourism moratorium: setting limits before it's too late

For Caraballo, the tourism moratorium "must be a political priority" of the next term. "The island needs to stop the creation of new accommodation places and review tourism growth forecasts to adapt them to its territorial and ecological capacity," he assures.

"A moratorium is not being against tourism. It is being against unlimited tourism growth. Lanzarote can continue to be a top-level tourist destination without needing to continue building new beds indefinitely," he states.

Caraballo also demands that any decision on the island's tourism future take into account objective indicators of territorial carrying capacity, water availability, energy consumption, waste generation, mobility, pressure on natural spaces, and access for the resident population to housing.