Lanzarote: el papel de la crisis - Fundación César Manrique

consumption of resources and the size of the population on the other. It is obvious that there
is no room for the production of waste in a situation like this. It probably did not exist at
all, not even as a concept. In this, the majos were ahead of their time.
For six centuries, the culture of equilibrium has been maintained although it has, slowly but
surely, been leaning towards a greater burden on the territory and less productive
diversification. In 1950, Lanzarote accommodated 25,000 people on a highly self-sufficient
productive foundation, whereby resources were put to use wisely, producing hardly any
waste other than that which was easily degradable and could be ploughed back into the
environment. At the time, which is not so very long ago, the ínsula de Lancelott was still an
idyllic destination for a tourism that was practically non-existent. Income was as low as
pollution and history, as unknown as experienced. The biosphere was still lacking in reserves.
Over the last few decades new publishers and distributors of maps better known than Angelino
Dubert’s have presented the ínsula de Lancelott to the world. In a very short time, present-day
tourist-adventurers, also from the north, have, thanks to their surplus income, progressively
turned the beautiful insular plateau into the deck of a gigantic, luxury aircraft carrier anchored
in the Atlantic, and its unstable balance depends, almost exclusively, on exotic factors.
In less than half a century, the cultivable surface area and hence, self-sufficiency, has
diminished to negligible levels: a meagre four p.c. of the island’s total. Dependence on the
exterior for water3 and energy is even greater, practically total. Every year, over one- and-ahalf
million new tourists are drawn by this huge, ecologically atilt, luxury aircraft carrier, where
they satisfy their exotic needs in an increasingly fragile, unbalanced environment. To enable
them to do so, every year, 35,000 aircraft travelling 214 million kilometres are required, along
with 1,800 ships, carrying 800,000 tonnes of materials, foodstuffs, water and fuels.
This economic miracle, bringing income levels that were inconceivable only 50 years ago,
entails an ecological cost even more inconceivable for the same 25,000 inhabitants of 1950.
Half-a-million tonnes of carbon dioxide, together with smaller, though far more dangerous
amounts of other atmospheric contaminants, are added annually to the 160,000 tonnes of
solid waste as a result, or through the transformation of, the large and costly external supply
of food, materials and energy.
Essentially, this economic model produces income and waste, coupled with an enormous,
an abysmal imbalance between knowledge, willingness and the capacity to administer and
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3 This is because all water
consumed is previously
desalinated, using imported fossil
energy (hydrocarbons).