Lanzarote En Pie (LEP) will propose to the Arrecife plenary the drafting of a general ordinance for the protection of the urban environment, in accordance with the principles contained in the institutional declaration approved by the corporation on September 27, 2019 in which "the climate emergency situation" was recognized.
“Arrecife needs to have a regulation for the protection of the urban environment that, in general, regulates all those actions that may influence the environmental conditions of the municipal environment in which they are carried out, since it is undoubtedly an effective protection tool that, transversally, would contribute to complementing other municipal regulations that have shortcomings or do not contemplate environmental aspects”, says LEP councilor, Leandro Delgado.
Delgado recalled that in 2019 the Arrecife City Council, through an Institutional Declaration, recognized the climate emergency situation we are going through and committed "to achieving the general objectives contained therein." "The City Council agreed, unanimously, to carry out actions aimed at favoring the reduction of plastics in commercial areas," adds the councilor, detailing that in 2020 "it did the same with the adhesion to the Network of Local Entities to develop the objectives of sustainable development of the 2030 Agenda"; and with the drafting "of an atmospheric protection ordinance for the municipality." "However, there is no evidence that all these proposals, presented by Lanzarote En Pie and approved unanimously, have been carried out”, criticizes the councilman.
“Nothing indicates that these institutional agreements have been executed, not even partially or as part of other measures. In any case, what we can deduce is that there has been no interest during this term in taking the first steps to move towards a city consistent with its status as the capital of the Biosphere Reserve of Lanzarote”, they assert from the formation.
"Although the total protection of the environment is no longer a competence of the municipalities, other matters that affect the urban environment are not excluded: the fight against climate change, the Local Agenda 21 or the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), among others”, adds Leandro Delgado.
Finally, Delgado stressed that “there are municipal areas whose competences are related, directly or indirectly, to the urban environment, such as Urban Planning, Mobility, Transport or Health, for example." "We believe that a general ordinance that transversally affects the competences of these can be the beginning of a new way of relating to the urban environment”, the councilman sentenced.