The Tenerife Cabildo has approved an amendment to the proposal presented by the PSOE and Sí Podemos to urge the Canary Islands Government to extend the period of public information of the document ‘Master Plan for the Use and Management (PRUG) of Teide’, which currently ends on July 22nd, to give the time necessary to guarantee "a broader debate and greater consensus".
The aim is to achieve a better adaptation of the regulatory text to the conservation needs of the Teide National Park, taking into account all the institutions, the needs, and expectations of the sectors involved and the citizens of Tenerife, to minimize the effects of any disinformation.
The Cabildo wants more time to "help spread and explain the details of the PRUG to the public since the has been a media campaign by certain sectors to try to create alarm among the population with the idea that they intend to ‘steal’ Teide from the public when the main purpose is to launch the PRUG to protect the environment in a positive way, that makes this space a National Park”.
The Teide PRUG, in the opinion of the Cabildo, “must go ahead, working on it in a consensual manner with the public, collecting the objections of the different groups, environmental associations, political parties, and the population in general, so that it gets underway and doesn’t stay as an intention on paper”.
A CONTROVERSIAL DOCUMENT:
The Teide crater will go from 65,000 visitors a year to more than 100,000 a year, according to the new PRUG which is now being hailed as a controversial document by people opposed to it. In fact, from the moment it entered the public information phase, numerous voices have criticized it, not including political parties, such as representatives of the audiovisual sector, beekeepers, athletes, and hunters, among others.
The construction of ‘park and ride’ bus stations is not included in the PRUG document, that is in the Mobility Plan of the Cabildo to respond to the new reality of the National Park if the Plan is approved, and the regulations that are proposed are adopted.
One of them limits the circulation of vehicles at times of maximum influx of visitors to avoid traffic jams and congestion, by installing park and ride outside the Park’s boundaries. There is also a suggestion that there are car parks that people must pay for inside the park, even though entrance to the park will remain free of charge.
The Teide National Park receives more than four million visits each year, which makes it the third-largest visited site in the world, and the one with the highest density given its size. Although the PRUG aims to control road traffic within the Park, it does not set limits on the number of visitors who can access it.
