The Alcogida Environmental Coordinator, formed by various associations and groups from Lanzarote, has warned that they will go to the Courts if the Isla de Los Volcanes Rally is finally authorized, scheduled for the first days of December. This was announced at a press conference and also in a letter addressed to the Cabildo, in which they address “all those concerned in this file”, pointing out that they could even take criminal actions against them.
In that letter, they recall that the rally had to be suspended last April “based on two unfavorable reports from the Biodiversity Service of the Government of the Canary Islands and the reports from the Island Plan Office”, and they emphasize that “neither the environmental nor the legal reasons that motivated the unfavorable reports have changed”.
“No route of said rally or other motor sports competitions that run along agricultural roads, tracks on protected landscapes, dirt tracks in natural spaces or in any category of rustic land should be authorized”, they point out in their letter, in which they recall the different regulations that regulate these spaces, which house protected birds and even endangered species.
In addition, they criticize the government group of the Cabildo, formed by the PSOE and Podemos. “Speech and actions must be consistent. The members of the government group continually resort to erecting themselves as champions of the defense of the territory, calling it limited and extremely fragile, they develop an elaborate discourse on respect and appreciation of the legacy of César Manrique to, then, be willing to any outrage on the scarce and fragile territory and against the natural values that make Lanzarote a unique island”, they criticize.
"A call for sanity"
Therefore, they make a “call for sanity” and ask the Cabildo to “prevent the organization of this activity and any others that may seriously and irreversibly damage the landscape of Lanzarote, as well as the habitats of botanical and zoological species that are protected and/or vulnerable or in danger of extinction”.
They also address the new Minister of the Environment for Podemos, Nicolás Saavedra, expressly, pointing out that “it is the responsibility of the Ministry that he now directs to pronounce on the uses in the territory that may affect the disturbance of the conditions in which biodiversity and natural and environmental values must be developed on the island of Lanzarote”.
In this regard, they point out that “the Classified Activities area”, from where they believe that the rally may be attempted to be authorized, “has no attributed competence to authorize specific ordinary uses on rustic land”.
To this they add that “it is the responsibility of the Biodiversity service of the Government of the Canary Islands to report on the effects that it may have on vulnerable and endangered protected species”, and they recall that “said reports are mandatory and binding”.
Finally, they also question the “murky example of lack of transparency” that they are facing, since Ecologistas en Acción requested the documentation of this file and it was denied to them in a letter signed by the head of the Classified Activities service.