AN excess of tourism is putting Spain’s Canary Islands under enormous strain and leaving the hugely popular destination facing ‘systemic collapse’ due to ‘too many tourists’.
That’s according to the Ben Magec-Ecologists in Action campaign group, who have produced a report on the issue that was cited by the Daily Mirror.
“The Canary Islands territory was more than overexploited,” the report reads. “We had exceeded the carrying capacity of the territory by seven times, resulting in a scenario of systemic collapse due to the urban development structure.
“Uncontrolled increase in the non-resident population of European origin, giving rise to completely overcrowded islands in which the generation of waste and the exploitation of resources cause an almost irreversible degradation of our natural ecosystems,” the text continues.
Tourist figures for 2023 showed that there were a record number of visitors to the Canary Islands in 2023, for a total of around 16 million. Of these, as many as half are estimated to be from the UK.
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