The image of “Hope”, the pilot whale or tropical Calderón who had to be sacrificed when the propeller of a ship cut off his tail next to Tenerife’s coasts, went around the world in 2019. Two years later, the battered
cetaceous has become the symbol of the campaign “Acts by Hope: Stop the new Macroport of Tenerife” driven by Movemos Europe, which already has the support of more than 415,000 signatures.
The plaintiffs request the European Parliament and the General Directorate of the Environment of the European Commission to denike the permits and funds for the construction of the Port of Fonsalia, southwest of the island, considering that it would have a serious environmental impact on the habitats of the
Tropical Calderón, Mular Dolphin, Boba and Green Sea Turtles and 74 Protected Species, as well as in the meadows of marine phanerogams.
The Global Alliance of Cetaceans appointed this sea strip as the first whale heritage place in Europe (and the third worldwide, after Bluff in South Africa and Harvey Bau in Australia).
Much of the coast is protected by the area of special conservation (ZEC) tan-scraca marine strip, but official recognition left an extension between the towns of Alcalá and San Juan Playa, where it has been gesturing for more than 20
Years the project that would be the fourth port of the island.
Under the premise of giving greater connectivity to Tenerife and decongesting the Port of Los Cristianos, the macroproject of Fonsalía foresees an infrastructure with capacity for five docking lines for large vessels, a fishing gate, two hundred and 467 squares of pain.
The last cessation was given by the Parliament of Canarias on June 9, with the approval of a proposal not of law promoted by the popular group and with the only opposition of YES we can.
“Faced with this Ecocide attempt, we decided to launch a petition to demand EU authorities to denike authorizations and funds”, alleges Virginia López Calvo, responsible for the campaign promoted by Movemos Europe.
“We denounced the intent of the Canarian authorities to resurrect this” Zombie “project before the expectation of receiving European recovery funds.”
“We are facing a project in which two thematic are converged that are at the top of the political agenda, biodiversity and climate change,” says López Calvo, which highlights the impulse given by citizen mobilization, with the hope of overcoming the
List of half a million firms in the coming weeks.
Movemos Europe has thus given continuity to the initiative promoted years ago by Ben Magec-ecologists in action, with the support of organizations such as Greenpeace, Oceana, WWF or SEO Birdlife, among others.
The request emphasizes that the macroport could suppose the direct destruction of the habitats and also cause “an increase in chemical, acoustic and lighting contamination”.
“More marine traffic would mean more collisions with cetaceans and turtles, and more human pressure in the ZEC, which has already been linked to high levels of cortisol (stress hormones) in Calderren,” warns the signatories.
Move Europe remembers how the project is due to the massive tourism model that has been evident as a result of the pandemic, and would negatively affect the transition towards more sustainable activities and high economic and social value, such as the observation of cetaceans, considered as already as
The second tourist activity in Tenerife.
Hope (Hope) was injured death in March 2019 at the passage of a boat.
It is estimated that the young female of Calderón tropical was three or four years old, when she could have lived until the sixties in the “sanctuary” against the tiner coasts where the greatest population of her species lives in Europe.
