Haven Tenerife

This month marks the completion of the fifteenth year of this website, mainly as In Tenerife and lately as Haven Tenerife, moving from a news and information site to a personal blog as a vehicle for expressing my main interests, which are cultural and environmental above all. This month also marks my birthday, and I’ve decided that the best present I can give myself is to bring the website to a close. Clearly, our species is incapable of sense. In the US, mass shootings of small children in schools are commonplace, there’s no other word for it, and the principal response has been the mind-bogglingREAD MORE

Today, 30 May, is Día de Canarias, a public holiday with many official events taking place and shops and offices closed, at least those away from the main tourist areas. The day celebrates the anniversary of the first official Parliamentary session of the islands on 30 May 1983, some 10 months after the Canaries became an autonomous region of Spain in August 1982. Apart from the formal and official events that are always held, the day is celebrated throughout the islands with a wide range of cultural events and festivities, usually organized by local Ayuntamientos, including a Baile de Magos, a dinner dance. These areREAD MORE

The Canarian Government’s own research has shown that around 150 beaches in these islands, including iconic resorts like Las Teresitas here in Tenerife or Las Canteras in Gran Canaria, are at risk of disappearing by 2050 through rising sea levels and coastal erosion as a result of the climate crisis. Apart from beaches themselves, many other coastal areas are vulnerable, bringing not just loss of territory but significant economic cost. These conclusions are the culmination of the PIMA – Plan de Impulso al Medio Ambiente (Coastal Adaptation Environmental Initiative Plan), a study carried out by the regional Environment Department which has assessed a range ofREAD MORE

As I posted HERE a few days ago, monkeypox is spreading in Spain, and now the one suspected case in Gran Canaria has been confirmed. Sanidad has also reported that five other cases have been under investigation in these islands, three considered probable, one suspected, and one just today confirmed not to be the condition. Samples from the four patients thought to be suffering from monkeypox have been sent to the Centro Nacional de Microbiología for confirmation but Sanidad says that they all, and the one confirmed case, are progressing favourably. Monkeypox is said to be spreading at an unusual pace, but is rarely fatalREAD MORE

I’ve argued many times that we cannot afford mass tourism for environmental reasons but we still need tourism in some form because it is a major plank of our economy. One form of tourism we do not need, however, is the type brought by two British louts who are now in rather serious trouble here. The pair, in their early 20s, were arrested at TFS as they tried to leave the island without paying the €2,000 they’d agreed to repay after police were called to investigate their trashing of their hotel room. Walls and furniture were victims of the vandalism, and even the TV wasREAD MORE