"We don't live from tourism, tourism lives from us" - a phrase that we have been seeing all over social media in recent weeks. The people of the Canary Islands have had enough of the government compromising the islands' natural landscapes and the well-being of its people for the sake of unsustainable mass tourism. This is one of the main reasons why they are taking to the streets on four different islands on 20 April. They are calling for a shift in the tourism model towards more sustainable and environmentally friendly practices that benefit people and nature.
Predictably, the government and the tourism and construction sectors are trying to twist the narrative to convey the message that the population has what they call tourism phobia. So they justify their decisions to continue building macro-hotels and apartment complexes by saying that we need them to keep growing economically. But one thing is clear, you cannot grow indefinitely on a planet with finite resources, let alone on an island where resources such as water are already becoming scarce.
As for us, being so far away from the islands, we sometimes feel like we could be doing more for them. Fortunately, every day we see that there are many passionate and hard-working people raising awareness of the islands' natural treasures and the threats they face - felipe.ravina, pablo.dive, atan_tenerife, fundacioncanarina, to name but a few. Nevertheless, we wanted to do our bit and use the experience we've gained over the past years working on biodiversity and conservation issues with NGOs, government institutions and, more recently, the private and financial sectors, to share how the implementation of an ecotax would be highly beneficial for the islands' nature and contribute to global biodiversity goals.
You can download the document in Spanish and English, and, if you are not from the Canary Islands but have visited or plan to do so in the future, please take one second of your time to answer the poll below.
Would you stop coming to the Canary Islands if you had to pay an ecotax?
I would still come
I would stop coming