Environmental activists announce a hunger strike if works in La Tejita and Adeje are not stopped

In statements to the media, activists have indicated that the strike It would start on Thursday, April 11 and about eight or ten people, members of the ‘Canarias se exhaust’ platform, would participate in it.

Within that period of ten days, they demand that the Canary Islands Executive convene the platform to a working table, provide “urgent solutions” and not “false promises”, and that it commits, “as a show of political will”, to definitively paralyze the works at the Hotel La Tejita and Cuna del Alma, in the Puertito de Adeje.

desperate measure

They made the announcement during a rally before the provincial leadership of Costas, in which they read a manifesto in which they stated that if they have reached this point it is because They have “no other choice” and for “the serious faults” that “our bad Government of the Canary Islands” is committing.

They have warned that “the responsibility for what could ultimately happen” with the hunger strike that they have announced “would be the same government that forced us to take this desperate measure, since «they are putting our present and our future at risk and that of the new generations.”

«Do not underestimate us, because we are many people. We are all of the Canary Islands, a whole movement. Without our work, our votes, you are nothing and nobody and you are not for what you are doing with the Canary Islands. We say enough is enough, not in our name,” warns the manifesto, which Víctor Martín and Isora Mesa have read.

Both, members of the ‘Canarias se exhaust’ platform, which includes representatives of health, education, care, art and agriculture, have stressed that the mobilizations of April 20 and the announced hunger strike are the result of the “despair” after having “knocked on each and every door to denounce their negligence.”

They have recalled that in recent years there have been “massive demonstrations and concentrations” in which “The Canarian population has spoken loud and clear”, and that various environmental groups have gone to local, provincial, regional, national and European bodies without finding solutions.

“Why do we want rulers who do not want to see what kind of consumed and worn out, raped and torn islands we are going to leave to our daughters and sons?” they have asked themselves.

Asked if there is “tourismphobia” in the Canary Islands, Isora Mesa stated that the groups organizing the demonstrations «We are not touristophobes, we are not generators of hate. “That’s what our governments are in charge of, not complying with the legislation and pushing the people to the limit.”

«The tourist is not our enemy»

Mesa said that these groups believe in tourism, that it is a development sector in the Canary Islands, but that they do not believe “in this model”, and added: “the tourist is not our enemy. They are those who are carrying out the policies that take us towards these paths, a Government that continues destroying the territory.”

“The Canary Islands are exhausted” proposes ending the “ecocides” and a tourism moratorium for the entire Canary Islands.

Regarding the specific case of the La Tejita hotel, Víctor Martín has stressed that the environmental groups have continued “all the regulatory channels for Costas to act, but he does not do it,” and since the works have been restarted they have demanded it again.

Regarding the aforementioned “tourismphobia”, he criticized that some political parties and business organizations “have no arguments” and resort to this type of terms, and added: “It’s not that we don’t want tourists here, we don’t want the current tourist development.”

He has indicated that the islands “They are good for other things” to boast year after year of visitor records and that Tenerife, for example, “is collapsed”, something that the citizen knows “and not only because of the traffic”, but also because of job insecurity, the increase in poverty or the lack of housing, he said, and yet the administrations “are betting on one more twist for the development of tourism.”