Lanzarote: el papel de la crisis - Fundación César Manrique

in 1988. Such a disproportionate percentage no longer surprises us when we take a close look
at the statistics of Lanzarote’s oversized automobile fleet: 76,466 vehicles in 1998, or twice
as many as there had been 10 years before: 38,580 in 1988. The figure gives a ratio of 901
vehicles to every 1,000 inhabitants, the highest in the country beyond any doubt. With a
practically non-existent public transport network on the island and a fleet of rental cars
making up an overwhelming total of more than 22,000 (the mainstay of a sector employing
about 5,000 people, with approximately 1,500 direct jobs and 3,500 indirect), privately-owned
vehicles are used for 80 per cent of travel on Lanzarote. In Arrecife alone, 25,000 cars take to
the roads every day, while over 62,000 drive daily through the inner city; i.e., half the daily total
recorded for the entire urban area of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. It should be taken into
account that Arrecife has a population of just over 40,000 and the capital of Gran Canaria,
about 350,000. Such heavy traffic seems incongruous on an island with a road network of
approximately 425 km and very short distances between the busiest points.
This celebration of progress and development cannot exclude the consumption rates of
electricity and water. While the consumption of electricity per user was 8.5 MWH in 1995, it
was up to 9.7 MWH three years later. In five years, from 1993 to 1998, electricity
consumption rose by 30 per cent. In 1995, the production of water amounted to 9,506,773m3 ,
whereas only three years later, in 1998, the figure reflected 3,000,000 m3 more, i.e.,
12,415,815 m3 . New desalination plants - 80 per cent of water consumed is desalinated - ,
which need fossil fuel to operate, are being built in order to meet growing demand. Thus, the
pressure on resources is ever greater in a Reserve of the Biosphere managed with an
imperceptible sensitiveness towards that biosphere, while nobody is taking any decisions or
providing the means to introduce policies through which to rationalise consumption. These
are failings affecting even the treatment of solid urban waste and the control of dumping in
the sea. Today, Lanzarote still needs to implement a determined, modern policy for the
environmental management of waste; a policy which, in addition to covering the selective
collection of waste and its subsequent reuse and recycling, should include prevention and
reduction schemes.
The island’s capital, Arrecife, is one of the greatest victims of the intense pace of growth and
transformation being seen on Lanzarote. Both the administrative capital of the island and
the main commercial area, the city has, through time, evolved independently of the scenic
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