Knowing the current situation of the salt mines in the Canary Islands, both as a landscape and ethnographic element and in its quality as a productive sector and potential job creator. This is the objective of some workshops launched this Tuesday in Lanzarote by the Ministry of Territorial Policy. The salt workers have been able to demand measures that guarantee their future, according to the Government of the Canary Islands.
Those responsible for the Janubio and Fuencaliente salt mines have pointed out that in order to guarantee the future of this economy, the Canarian public officials must make "a common front" so that the salt mines cease to depend on the Ministry of Industry and begin to depend on the Ministry of Agriculture. "Only in that way we will be able to access aid both from the State and from the European Community," said Carlos Padrón, representative of the Janubio Salt Mines.
This request has been heard by the Deputy Minister of Territorial Policy, Mario Pérez, who has recognized "the singularity of the Canarian salt farms and the impact they have on numerous aspects, both landscape, environmental and economic." "From my department we are very receptive when it comes to facilitating whatever measures are necessary not only for the conservation of these productive structures, but also for the implementation of improvements that allow improving their performance ratios," Pérez said.
The disappearance of the salt mines, "an environmental disaster"
These conferences are being developed through different presentations to explain "the life" that exists in the salt mines. Domingo Concepción, collaborator of SEO BirdLife in the Canary Islands, explained that in the Lanzarote salt mines there are four species that have established their nests. "They have nested in our territory, while between 25 and 30 different species use that physical space as a stopover in their migrations between the North Pole and sub-Saharan Africa, when not to territories much further south," he indicated.
For Concepción, "the potential disappearance of these salt mines would be an environmental disaster, since practically all of these species are protected internationally and would run serious risks if at some point they do not find the place to make a stopover in those periodic transits."
On the other hand, Héctor Mendoza, director of the biotechnology department of the Technological Institute of the Canary Islands, has analyzed the possibility that the salt mines become elements "contributing to the development of new products linked to research and the cultivation of species adapted to hypersaline environments." Thus, he has made a review of the special characteristics that, at the level of microorganisms, the salt mines such as Janubio have.
A possible business: the growth of microalgae
Thus, he assured that they could be "oriented to the growth of microalgae that, at present, are serving as the basis for numerous industries, including the biodiesel industry." "Not in vain, the United States Department of Defense is one of the organizations that is working the most in this line in order to provide its combat aircraft with this type of fuel," Mendoza said.
These conferences around the traditional salt mines are framed within the Gestatlántico project, through which the recovery, rehabilitation and conditioning of coastal natural spaces is intended with the design of a sustainable coast model, based on the identification of adequate land supply, both in uses and in planning.
The Government of the Canary Islands has highlighted the "potential" that exists on the Euro-African coast for the development of products with the sea and, therefore, "has embarked on the task of valuing traditional salt mines."