Science has been talking about climate change for decades, about the risks it poses to the future of our environment - which includes society and biospheres - and about the expiration of our way of life. Numerous political leaders around the world have begun to walk the path of sustainability and have incorporated these ideas into their projects and actions. For its part, the citizenry has positioned itself as part of the active vanguard in the fight against the culture of the disposable - prevailing since the beginning of the century - and in favor of caring for the environment.
At this moment it is not possible to deny reality. What's more, we are arriving late and, in many cases, badly. However, despite the forcefulness of the data and the evidence that reality puts before us every day, it is still possible to take advantage of the window of opportunity that these times of crisis have given us to change the model.
What does it strictly mean to change the model? We are at a crossroads. The study of the anthropocene - the geological era determined by the impact of human beings on the planet - shows that what we have been doing until now and, above all, the way we have been doing it, does not work. Problems have been accumulating for decades: unlike the first societies of development, we are aware of the depletion of resources and the excesses of waste that accumulate behind our civilization.
The Canary Islands have started on the path of change. In the last twenty years we have experienced unparalleled development that was necessary to establish ourselves as a social space integrated into Europe. We have done it to the point that in some of our most specific areas of action we are international benchmarks. Now, in this developed and contemporary Canary Islands, the challenges are different and it is our responsibility to take advantage of all the opportunities that arise to face them effectively.
It has become necessary to rethink political action and orient it towards sustainability: it is an unavoidable exercise of responsibility that also brings us closer to the state of contemporary well-being. It is about finding new balances between development and care, between society and territory, and that search can only be successful if it starts from a knowledge of the environment, if it is thought from a panorama of the local.
That is where our nationalism becomes decisive, because the experience of government and the experience of the local put in our hands the decisive tools for change. For some time now, Canarian nationalism has been thinking and rethinking itself with a view to new commitments: this has been expressed in the so-called bionationalism, which not only has to do with the environment, but also with the economy, education, tourism, culture and mobility.
Under this huge umbrella, very beneficial actions have been launched for our Islands. From the Parliament of the Canary Islands I have had the opportunity to promote the fight against plastic, through a non-law proposal that was supported by all political groups and has given rise to the Canary Strategy against Plastic.
Also from my seat for Lanzarote I have promoted a development project for the urban centers of the biosphere reserves, in which I firmly believe and which has important improvements in the archipelago. It is about conceiving cities and urbanism in harmony with the natural environment. An initiative that integrates the project of "Arrecife, capital of the biosphere reserve".
The bionationalism in which I believe and which is gradually permeating throughout our geography does not emphasize exclusively ecological measures, but rather enhances the citizen-environment binomial in all areas. Furthermore, it does so in a comprehensive way, so it pays special attention and with the utmost ambition to the educational system. This path also includes another of the flagship measures of this nationalist ideological approach, which I have also promoted from the Parliament of the Canary Islands, the creation of the Emocrea subject, which has brought emotional education to the classrooms of the Islands. The creation of an individual and collective consciousness, aware of the connection with oneself and with the environment, is one of the essential ways of this change in which the Canary Islands is understood as a place of encounter and self-awareness.
This type of measures put into operation are joined by others, such as the strengthening of the agricultural and livestock sectors, the improvement and reduction in the price of public transport and connectivity between the Islands and with Europe, the decarbonization of the archipelago or the advances in the field of wind energy. In this last field we are also in a leading position: we are the autonomous community where the greatest investment has been made during the current legislature.
Conceiving this new reality and seeing the Canary Islands with new glasses, those of sustainability, has necessarily led us to enter the path of the circular economy. We are aware of the difficulties that island territories have in issues such as waste management and we are catching up in this pending subject.
Although our autonomous community has a high number of protected natural spaces (we have worked hard to make it so), beyond protecting, we also have to regenerate and recover. A very interesting project that exemplifies this well is the recovery of seagrass beds in the Arrecife marina.
We are, and must continue to be, benchmarks in the world. We are leading international processes of special relevance, as I have been able to verify every time I have been invited to forums, congresses and other spaces related to the environment and sustainability. And we want to be the voice of the island territories in the world.
I believe in a contemporary and sustainable Canary Islands. I believe in our potential and in the present and future opportunities. And I will continue working so that this bionationalist ideological project continues to grow and make us advance in maximum harmony with our natural spaces, our culture and the progress of citizenship.
David de la Hoz Fernández is a deputy of the CC-PNC group and candidate for Parliament for the island of Lanzarote
