Lanzarote today

Despite the environmental awareness of the islanders, some aspects of the model that was developed and implemented were environmentally unsustainable in other destinations, and this began to be felt in Lanzarote at the end of the 1980s.

Before his death in 1992, Manrique had placed himself at the forefront of protests against mass tourism and urban deviations, becoming a symbol of the land and the nature of the Canaries. Lanzarote’s most popular protest in its history was on September 22, 2002 under the slogan “No to the destruction of the island.”

Still, the growth of tourism has remained a constant over the last few years. The island of fifty thousand hotel rooms in 2001, grew to have over seventy-two thousand in 2006. This runaway growth has occurred despite the pioneering urban policy launched in Lanzarote through successive plans of Land Island (PIOT) and moratoriums issued for construction.

Urban planning has been breached by a good number of new hotels, whose licenses were canceled for justice. They are now in a difficult legal position, whose future is still unknown, according to an article in the newspaper El Pais.

With the economy geared towards tourism and the construction sector, Lanzarote has been led from an island with a migrating population to an island that is experiencing a huge wave of immigration. Lanzarote has seen a dramatic increase in population. At present, half the population living in Lanzarote was born outside of the island and a quarter are registered foreigners.

While media have pointed to a greater immigration from mainland Africa by sea (the so-called phenomenon of the boats), the largest population is, appropriately, from the European continent.

In summary, in recent decades Lanzarote has experienced the greatest socio-economic development in its history, finally abandoning their marginality. Therefore, the island is now among those facing the most important challenges of modern societies in our time.

These include the need to reconcile economic development with the sustainability of its natural environment, and integrating its immigrant population within a multicultural society while maintaining its own cultural identity within a global world. Lanzarote must also recover the primary sector that continues to serve as a powerful attraction for the tourism industry, and focus on diversifying its economy.