Tenerife News

The chairman of the residents association “Friends of Los Cristianos”, Leopoldo Díaz Melo has called for the removal of the fish-farming cages off the coast of Los Cristianos.

Leopoldo says they are damaging the image of Los Cristianos, a key generator of wealth which attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year who take their holidays there. It is unacceptable that this the first thing tourists see when they arrive on the cruise liners and that this is exactly what happened several days ago when a luxury ship arrived at the tourist town. The first things to greet the new visitors saw were these ugly fish farms.

“The fish cages that being placed increasingly closer to the entrance of the harbour and one day we will be seeing the things near the beach” said the chairman, adding that this must be stopped immediately.

Diaz Melo questioned what good reason the authorities have for the current location when there are so many other places they could be placed where the negative visual impact would be significantly reduced.  Why on Earth are the placed so near the coastline of a town so economically significant to the island?

The expansion of the macro-fish-farming project drew strong criticism from many groups back in 2005 when more of the giant cages were placed into the waters off of Los Cristianos and Las Americas. Given that the local corporations and groups have no power to intervene and that their protests fell on deaf ears back then it is difficult to imagine they will be any more successful this time around. The best they could hope for is a change of heart from the Tenerife authorities.

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