“They want to take away the river and also the beach. “They want my neighborhood and for your children to leave.” These are some verses from the new song by the artist Bad Bunny that has taken the Canary Islands by storm. The letter of What happened to Hawaii has permeated the islands by exposing the problems that the Archipelago shares with Puerto Rico and Hawaii. Mass tourism, the destruction of natural spaces, the inability to access housing or cultural loss are some of the threats that the Puerto Rican singer reflects in his latest album.
“Listening What happened to Hawaii and crying because the Canary Islands are going down the same path,” can be read in one of the publications that has gone viral in recent days. “The Canary Islands have a limit” is the motto with which thousands of people mobilized in 2024 to ask for a change in the model. In the two protests that took place last year, the population demanded a tourism moratorium, measures against the housing crisis, the suspension of large macroprojects on the islands such as Cuna del Alma or the Motor Circuit, a tourist tax and the protection of the natural spaces and the endemic species of the islands.
This last point also features in the song’s video clip, which in the last four days has achieved 5,232,590 views on YouTube. It lists the endemic animals of Puerto Rico that are in danger of extinction as a result of the depredation of the territory. Some species are the Puerto Rican parrot or the forest guaraguao.
The singer Benito Martínez Ocasio, better known as Bad Bunny, has previously denounced the problems suffered by Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States considered the oldest colony in the world.
In 2022 he uploaded the documentary to his YouTube channel The blackout (People live here). The protagonists of the short film denounce how the promotion of tourism to Puerto Rico by the United States has brought with it the privatization of resources such as electricity, housing or beaches. “I paid $230 a month to rent my house. Now you pay $150 per night for Airbnb,” criticized a Puerto Rican woman.
This has also happened in Hawaii. “In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, we exceeded 10 million tourists annually and our total population is 1.5 million inhabitants. We have experienced overtourism, massive tourism, very extractive, which has had a detrimental impact on our environment, our culture, our community,” said Keani Rawlins, vice president of the Maui County Council (Hawaii, USA), at the I Forum. International debate on the Present and Future of Tourism in the Canary Islands organized by Canarias Ahora and the Diario de Avisos Foundation
The expert pointed out that one of the impacts of mass tourism was the displacement of pre-existing communities due to the impossibility of affording housing. “That’s what a lot of people are dealing with, specifically Native Hawaiians, as well as people from families that have been here for generations,” he said.
“Environmentalism has already warned of the impact of the tourism model on the environment since the time of Manrique, and even before,” recalls Anne Striewe, graduate in Biological Sciences and master’s degree in Environmental Management. ”Now it is more on everyone’s lips because the problems no longer only affect birds, lizards or the climate. They are already social. We are talking about a housing crisis, the collapse of services, traffic…”, details Striewe, member of the Canarina Foundation for the defense of nature and the Canary Islands.
Along these lines, he maintains that both Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Canary Islands are small and limited territories that cannot grow any more. ”When you bring more and more people into a small space, they compete with the local population for basic resources like water and land. There are many millions more people who consume natural resources that are disappearing,” he asserts.
The housing crisis
“No one wanted to leave here, and whoever left dreams of returning; If one day it touches me, it will hurt me a lot,” the song says. The difficulties in finding a home also extend to the Canary Islands. “If you don’t have a place to live or it is so expensive that you can’t afford it, you have to leave,” the scientist emphasizes.
Added to the high rates of poverty suffered by the islands is the lack of housing, which means that some Canarians have to leave or, if they are away, they cannot return. “There are no long-term homes available. Or because they are empty, or because they are for vacation rental,” adds the expert.
“Even if you earn 1,500 euros, if you have to pay 800 euros in rent, it’s not enough to live on,” Striewe emphasizes. 775,000 people on the islands are at risk of poverty and social exclusion, 33.8% of their population, as stated in the XIV report The state of poverty. Monitoring of the indicators of the EU 2030 Agenda. 2015-2022.
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