The “lack of organization” and the “saturation” of the Montañas de Fuego tourist center are the two main problems facing the Timanfaya National Park. To seek solutions for the common good, representatives of the Government of the Canary Islands, the Cabildo of Lanzarote and the Yaiza City Council reflected together in a round table last Friday, July 18, which culminated the Public Use Management Conference.
“We must limit for the benefit of conservation”, declared Miguel Ángel Morcuende, general director of Natural Spaces and Biodiversity of the Government of the Canary Islands. “The conservation of resources, including their improvement, is vital. The national parks law says so. Everything else must be subject to this”, he recalled. In addition, he reiterated what the Minister of Ecological Transition of the Government of the Canary Islands, Mariano H. Zapata, had already stated the day before: “We need to change the visit model”.
The current processes of revision of the Island Plan of Ordination of Lanzarote and of environmental planning instruments such as the Rector Plan of Use and Management (PRUG) of the Timanfaya National Park or the Plan of Ordination of Natural Resources (PORN) of the adjacent Natural Park of the Volcanoes, “constitute an ideal moment to join efforts”, said the general director.
They also represent an opportunity to propose the expansion of the Timanfaya National Park, since the current boundaries of the Lanzarote park were drawn more than 35 years ago without the current means or technology.
The Minister of Environment of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Samuel Martín, agreed that “ordering is conserving” and that the updating of the instruments of territorial and environmental planning is “key”. The councilor added that “a process of institutional and citizen participation” must be opened to regulate natural spaces. “Environmental education and the installation of shuttles are essential”, such as those implemented last April in a pilot project to reduce the saturation suffered by the Cuervo volcano and Montaña Blanca.
The essence and heart of Lanzarote
The director of Promotur Turismo de Islas Canarias, José Juan Lorenzo, stressed that Timanfaya “is what defines us and what we are, it is the essence and heart of Lanzarote”. The manager agreed that “the Timanfaya National Park needs organization for the benefit of conservation and the tourist experience” since the current situation “deteriorates the image and coexistence”.
Óscar Noda, mayor of Yaiza, pointed out that the solution is “through collective vehicles” and by implementing the online advance reservation with maximum quotas of visitors per time slot as soon as possible. “We have been reflecting for some time, but without acting”, he considered. All the institutions agreed that, after years of debate, “inaction” and “fear of change”, it is time to agree and “make decisions”.
The biologist Ana Carrasco, managing director of the Council of the Biosphere Reserve of Lanzarote and moderator of the table, recalled that the “search for amazement” is one of the founding objectives of the Art, Culture and Tourism Centers developed by César Manrique with the help of other brilliant minds such as that of Jesús Soto. The “immensity, silence and wind” of Timanfaya should be able to be experienced by the people who visit the national park.
The attending public, very participatory, demanded “common sense” from the institutions and an “urgent” decision-making, in addition to pointing out that the suffering of the neighbors when they try to move along the LZ-67 road, saturated with queues of vehicles and with situations that put road safety at risk, is “unpresentable”.
