Thousands of people will join protests across the Canary islands on Saturday to call for an urgent rethink of the Spanish archipelago’s tourism indu

Thousands protest against Canary islands’ ‘unsustainable’ tourism model

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2024-04-20 07:00:09

Thousands of people will join protests across the Canary islands on Saturday to call for an urgent rethink of the Spanish archipelago’s tourism industry and a freeze on tourist numbers, arguing that the current, decades-old model has made life unaffordable and environmentally unsustainable for local people.

The protests – which will take place under the banner “Canarias tiene un límite” (The Canaries have a limit) – are being backed by environmental groups including Greenpeace, WWF, Ecologists in Action, Friends of the Earth and SEO/Birdlife.

“We’ve reached the point where the balance between the use of resources and the welfare of the population here has broken down – especially over the past year,” said Víctor Martín, a spokesperson for the Canarias se Agota (The Canaries Have Had Enough) collective, which is helping to coordinate Saturday’s protests across the eight islands.

Eleven members of Canarias se agota have already been on hunger strike for a week to protest against the construction of two large luxury developments in southern Tenerife, which they describe as “illegal” and totally unnecessary.