Hypocritically Saturated Island

February 3 2023 (09:47 WET)

Upon returning from FITUR, the most important tourism promotion fair in the country, our very socialist island president gave a press conference to say, among other things, that Lanzarote is "touristically saturated." Yes, upon returning from FITUR. 

I am sure that those statements she made with all the fanfare from Islote de la Fermina did not have the repercussion that she and her well-nourished team of advisors expected. Big announcements, those that are worth an entire legislature, require something more than a pretty stage, a video with epic music, and a call to a friendly media outlet to keep the headline on the front page for at least the entire morning. 

Such an announcement, which could forever change the way our people earn their living, was not a topic of conversation in cafes, was not commented on in the waiting room of the health center, and did not cause even a little bit of concern in the office of the president of Asolan. Even in the talk shows on local radio stations, filled with aspiring public managers, it passed without notice.

Perhaps the lack of enthusiasm for María Dolores Corujo's grandiose words has to do with credibility, or rather the lack of it. Although political memory is short, those of us who make it a habit to pay attention to public affairs still remember that also high-sounding declaration of "climate emergency" at the beginning of the legislature. A declaration that changed nothing and did not involve a single concrete measure to reverse the effects of climate change from our position as a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic.

Indeed, Lanzarote is touristically saturated. The president was right in the diagnosis, just as she was right in declaring a climate emergency. But being right in the diagnosis does not imply knowing the appropriate treatment or having the necessary capacity to apply it. 

Planting a hypothetical Climate Change Observatory in La Fermina will not solve the problem of global warming, just as changing poor tourists for rich tourists does not solve tourist saturation. Because, to no one's surprise, the solution that the socialist wing of the Cabildo and the SPEL are proposing right now is the cosmetic of calling "quality tourism" and "Lanzarote Premium" the same old paint and color.

In the last pre-pandemic FITUR, in the so distant 2020, the president's great obsession was the "reinforcement of connectivity," or what is the same, that more airlines open routes with Lanzarote so that more tourists arrive. In 2020 we also had a climate emergency, the queues in Timanfaya already had us talking to ourselves, and we lived squeezed between so many red tourists. What was certainly not there in 2020 was the threat of regional elections.

The PSOE knows that after this legislature it has completely lost the environmentalist support it had left. After trying to wipe their backsides with the PIOT of 93, the inability to solve the marine holocaust that the cages of Playa Quemada represent, the commitment to continue promoting the use of private cars by planning new roads that no one needs, the zero progress in the introduction of renewables, the commitment to deny that the extraction of sand poses a problem for the island's biodiversity, and with the veiled contempt for the Biosphere Reserve Council, the very socialists are clear that the social agents of environmentalism and the protection of the territory will not choose their faded ballot in May.

To give solutions to the climate emergency and to end tourist saturation, there are no magic measures, but everything goes through the same path: degrowth. In addition to increasing the effective protection of natural spaces and biodiversity, which must be financed once and for all with an ecotax as all mature and savvy tourist destinations do, a tourism law must be drafted now that contemplates an ambitious moratorium. 

There are no more recipes. There is no speech, no inauguration, no drone show that draws a certain future for this little piece of land. Everything goes through degrowing, through having the courage to tell the employers that they will have to eat less so that we can have a place to live tomorrow, through standing up to the new owners of the island so that they know that it was good enough. 

But as always, the PSOE's legs tremble and it has to limit itself to an empty declaration to see if it can save the furniture. 

 

Most read