Socialists challenge Teide National Park management plan
The Tenerife Island Council (Cabildo) has excluded scientists, environmentalists, and groups outside the ruling CC and PP coalition from the technical monitoring commission for the development of the Teide National Park Master Plan for Use and Management (PRUG). The Socialist Group is demanding the presence of the political opposition, where the PSOE holds a majority with 11 councillors, as well as all stakeholders involved in the document, in this newly created body.
Three core objections to the new plan
The Socialists have outlined three central objectives. Firstly, to delegitimise the approved PRUG, arguing that it “does not emerge from the scientific, social, or environmental consensus necessary for a World Heritage site”. Secondly, to “demand a new alternative Plan”, based on “real sustainability, control of carrying capacity, and technical endorsement”. Finally, to “correct the institutional design” of the Teide Island Commission, which “currently excludes key actors in the management of the park”.
The PSOE’s critical focus is on “the exclusion of those who manage and know the park”. In this sense, “scientific groups, universities, conservationists, mountaineers, and entities directly linked to the management and use of the park are left out.” For the Socialists, “this practically violates the spirit of the Master Plan itself, which in its programme 7.5 recognises the need for institutional coordination and relationship with the surrounding area.”
Formal motion tabled for plenary debate
The Socialist Group is taking its proposal to the full council plenary with a motion. It rejects the new Teide Plan, approved by Decree 182/2025 of 1 December, “for not being the result of a consensus process” and, consequently, “lacking the support of the scientific, university, environmentalist, and mountaineering community, nor that of the park’s own conservation director [Manuel Durbán]”.
The proposal includes a request for the Tenerife Island Council to urge the Canary Islands Government to “draw up and approve an alternative PRUG for Teide National Park” that has “the social, scientific, and environmental support of the Island of Tenerife”. The PSOE also calls for the modification of the Island Monitoring and Coordination Commission created on 27 October to implement the Teide Master Plan. This would “allow the participation of all political parties represented in the island corporation’s plenary hall”, as well as “groups or associations with interests in the management of the National Park”.
A “symptom of arrogance” and structural failures
Furthermore, the PSOE demands that the Cabildo commit to “abandoning propaganda policy based on false announcements and ideas without technical foundation” to begin managing the park “with the rigour required by our most emblematic place”. The Socialist Group places the motion in a structural context: “More than 5 million annual visitors forecast, a management model anchored in outdated schemes, or the repeated rejection by CC, PP and Vox of tools like a finalist ecotax or effective control of carrying capacity.” For the PSOE, “the new PRUG does not face these challenges”, but instead “consolidates an intensive exploitation of the park, ignoring the warnings of the scientific community.”
Javier Rodríguez Medina, PSOE councillor and former head of the Natural Environment department in the previous term, considers it “indecent” what is being done on Teide and that such an emblematic place for Tenerife “is being battered in such a virulent way”. He believes the Master Plan “was meant to be the document on which to base a new strategy for mobility and visits”, but “has become the complete opposite”, a “burden for Teide National Park itself”.
He elaborates that it “represents an element of discord that has only served to bring together all the sensitivities that exist against this document,” listing “mountaineers, visitors, the audiovisual sector, the conservation director himself who has not spoken in favour, or the environmentalists.” In short, Rodríguez Medina assesses, “they have managed to unite all sensitivities against this document and, moreover, have committed the arrogance of not knowing how to listen.”
Criticism of the oversight commission’s composition
Regarding the latter point, the socialist councillor argues that “they have created an internal commission of the Cabildo for the implementation of the new Plan and have not taken other sensitivities into account”, meaning “neither groups, nor associations, nor clubs, nor federations, absolutely nobody.” Furthermore, “not even the Socialist Party, with the largest representation in the Plenary Hall, is included.”
“They do not want to hear contrary opinions and that is a symptom of arrogance,” Javier Rodríguez emphasises. He also points out that “that monitoring commission should be chaired by Rosa Dávila as president of the Cabildo”, but “she has chosen to delegate it to the vice-president and councillor for the presidency, José Miguel Ruano.” “To us, this seems dramatic,” summarises the PSOE’s environment spokesperson in the Cabildo. In his opinion, “if the president has time to inaugurate the nativity scene portal and does not dedicate it to Teide, our most distinguished place of greatest environmental value, what is she there for?” Rodríguez Medina concludes that “it is extremely serious and we consider it devalues and mistreats the national park.”
The PSOE seeks to “force a profound shift in the management of Teide National Park”, questioning “both the content” of the new Master Plan approved by the Canary Islands Government and “the manner” in which the Cabildo is implementing it. The motion “is not only technical, it is a political challenge to the governance model chosen by Rosa Dávila and her government.”
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