By Urs Heinz Aerni
I am writing these lines on the terrace of a holiday flat in Tenerife, accompanied by the songs of blackcaps and Canary finches – better known as canaries – and the barking of dogs from the village. I am here for both personal and professional reasons, and yes, the natural surroundings here are fascinating, at the foot of Spain’s highest mountain, Mount Teide.
During a walk across black lava soil, an expert on the island provides insights into local social developments. On Tenerife, too, mass tourism appears to be increasing to such an extent that locals are beginning to protest. The words ‚tourists go home‘ were spray-painted on a kiosk in Candelaria.
Indeed, huge hotels are springing up along the coast, energy and water consumption are on the rise, and so is marine pollution. How did this come about?
Why aren’t the tourists on Tenerife staging a protest?
First, the money lures people in; then investments are made and advertising campaigns launched; and now the holiday industry is booming. How does the saying go, loosely based on Goethe? ‚The spirits I summoned / I cannot now get rid of.‘
Our home, which epitomises environmental sustainability, is situated in a landscape dotted with detached houses and villas. Many of the homes are newly built or have recently been re-plastered. Scattered across the hillside, neat, stylish and architecturally daring homes are springing up. This urban sprawl is fuelled by a windfall whose source need not be discussed at length here.
The gardens resemble parks: the stone pavements have been scrubbed clean, the cars gleam and dogs bark. All around is wasteland: stony ground, bushes, wild flowers, grasses and old trees; actually perfect for biodiversity. If only there weren’t plastic bottles, tins, cigarette packets and whole car parts lying about everywhere.
What does that English proverb say? „My home is my castle“. And one might add: „What’s the world out there got to do with me?“ That seems to be the mindset in the south, and not just on Tenerife.
Nature belongs to us all, including the rubbish that’s destroying it. Why don’t the tourists on the holiday islands have a protest for a change? With banners saying things like, ‚It wasn’t us tourists who brought the rubbish – it was here before we arrived.‘ Or something like that?
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