Canary Islands Population Growth Unsustainable

Fifty thousand people come to live in the Canary Islands every year, 20,000 of them from outside the European Union. This population increase, according to the "official figures", has brought the population density to 528 inhabitants per square kilometer, a figure only surpassed by Madrid and an increase that Canary Islands President, Adán Martín, considers to be unsustainable.

There are those, however, and logic seems to follow their argument, who have been saying this for years and maintain that, once you take the large tracts of land in the islands that are not inhabited (and that are unable to be inhabited) out of the equation, the real population density in the inhabited areas of the Canary Islands is similar to and is well on its way to overtaking that of Japan, Singapore, or Hong Kong and, close to that of the Maldive Islands.

Martín, responding to questions from an opposition (Popular Party) spokesman, said that his government is conscious of the increase in immigration, but that the rate of arrivals has not decreased in the last five years, independently of the measures taken to control the situation.

While the opposition spokesman recognized that the immigration phenomenon is a complex problem, which has it's origin in the imbalance in the world, he also laid blame to what he called the "foolish" policies of the Socialist central government.

For my own part, pointing fingers and blaming - which seems to be all the opposition can do - does nothing whatsoever to to solve anyone's problem and it is hard to see how it can be central government's problem (for a start it predates their term) that there are "haves" and "have nots" in all parts of the world, who see emigration as their only hope of survival. This is not the Canaries' problem. It is not even Spain or the EU's problem: this is humanity's problem.

The question is, will we ever have the wisdom to solve it?

Adán Martín afirma que el crecimiento de la población actual es insostenible

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