Struggles on the Port of Granadilla: defending the right to nature

ABSTRACT

The paper examines the destruction and commodification of nature during the development of the mega-port of Granadilla on the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain), and the social movements that arose in response to these actions. It draws on participant observations within protest movements, participation in collective action and meetings in the 2000s, relevant documents, and seven interviews with former presidents of the port authority, the ex-mayor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and environmental activists. By focusing on the interplay of the crisis, urbanization, nature, conservation and the uprisings, the study expands the literature on the neoliberalization of nature. It is found that the neoliberalization of nature began to intensify after the financial crash in 2008, the completion of the port played a significant role, and biodiversity offsetting emerged against this background. Further, rollbacks in conservation regulations fostered urbanization in the future. The study also focuses on social contestation by highlighting its political emancipatory potential. The emergence of a political red–green alliance that combined the vindication of social rights with the defence of nature and the demand for a different social and territorial island model highlights the ‘right to nature’ as a central element in the fight for the ‘right to the island’.

KEYWORDS:

• nature
• neoliberalization
• mega-infrastructure
• right to the island
• right to nature
• social movement
• Canary Islands

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A previous version of this paper was presented at the ‘Rights to Nature: Tracing Alternative Political Ecologies to the Neoliberal Environmental Agenda’ conference, Cambridge, UK, June 2016. The authors thank the organizers, Elia Apostolopoulou and Jose A. Cortes-Vazquez, for their support. They are indebted to Luz Marina García-Herrera for checking several versions of the present paper, and for providing critical insight and constructive suggestions. They also thank Ivan Murray, Tom Slater and Erik Swyngedouw for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper, and the editor and anonymous referees for their constructive suggestions.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Variegated movement that took to the streets and squares in several cities on 15 May and days later to express their common indignation against austerity, cuts, high unemployment rates and loss of political control in the face of the 2011 elections (Charnock et al., 2012, p. 4).

Additional information

Funding

The projects leading to this paper received funding from The Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF): Project title ‘Crisis and Social Vulnerability in the Balearics and Canary Island (Spain) Cities. Changes in the Social Reproduction of Spaces’ [grant number CSO2015-68738-P]; The Ministry of Science and Innovation, and Universities (MICINN), Project title ‘Urban Conflicts in Spaces of Social Reproduction. Housing as an Arena of Social Conflicts [grant number RTI2018-094142-B-C22]; and the Research and Innovation Program [H2020 MarieSklodowska Curie Actions Grant Agreement No. 873082 (CONTESTED_TERRITORY)].