The candidate of Drago Verdes Canarias for the Parliament of the Canary Islands for Lanzarote, Rafa Jiménez, proposes to "give preference in water consumption to homes before hotels and other tourist accommodations on the island", according to him, "as a measure to alleviate the energy expenditure produced by the consumption of water that entails the excessive tourist burden, as well as to guarantee the supply in rural areas of Lanzarote and La Graciosa".
"In Lanzarote, the time has come to set limits," says Jiménez, "the desalination of water by electrical energy to supply almost three million tourists is environmentally and socially unfeasible," and adds that "we have to put a stop to it, as the State Government did with electricity consumption in the face of the energy crisis situation derived from the war in Ukraine, or as we did in Lanzarote with measures such as the PIOL or the moratorium".
Jiménez reports that "Drago Verdes Canarias will take this proposal to the institutions with the aim of starting to work on a legal framework in this regard" and warns that "for this it is necessary that the island and regional authorities demand collaboration from the hotel and tourism business community in a moment of unprecedented water, social and environmental crisis."
"Until now, the population of Lanzarote has supported the massive arrival of tourists without complaints," continues the candidate, "assuming environmental, resource, health, infrastructure and service collapse costs," and highlights that "the condition of Biosphere Reserve should be reason enough for all agents involved in the problem, including tourists, hoteliers and institutions, to do their part and try to reverse the situation."
"It is dystopian that there are towns in Lanzarote without water while tourists fill the bathtub"
Jiménez describes as "dystopian that there are towns in Lanzarote without water while tourists fill the bathtub" and argues that "the citizens of Lanzarote and La Graciosa are the ones who are really suffering the problems of shortage", while understanding as "disastrous" the water management of the island institutions and the company Canal Gestión.
Jiménez concludes that "it is evident that something is being done wrong, and it must be changed urgently, Lanzarote cannot withstand the tourist pressure or its environmental and social consequences any longer" and adds that "the institutions of the island have to find the middle ground between subjecting everything to the will of the hotel entrepreneurs and leaving the population without water supply."