The Hard Reality
In 2024, nearly 18 million visitors came to the Canary Islands, home to just 2.2 million people. Tenerife alone received close to 9 million tourists—more than nine times its resident population. Unlike almost every other major European destination, there is no off-season here. The sun shines year-round, which is precisely what made these islands so attractive, and also why the pressure never lifts. No quiet months, no recovery period for the ecosystems, the infrastructure, or the communities. What was once a strong competitive advantage has become, without proper governance to manage it, a structural trap.
As visitor numbers rise, so do the environmental impacts. Over 100 million liters of poorly treated wastewater enter the ocean around Tenerife every single day. Infrastructure has simply not kept pace with the speed of construction, resulting in unauthorized discharge points that have forced the EU to fine the islands repeatedly. Beaches like El Médano, Puerto de Santiago, and recently Puerto Colón now face a recurring cycle of closure due to dangerous E. coli levels. This is just one tangible sign that the very environment visitors come to enjoy is being compromised by the industry meant to serve them.
This contamination does not stay offshore; it inevitably circles back to the marine life that calls these waters home. The same waters tainted by this waste are the permanent habitat of the pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins in the Teno-Rasca strip, Europe’s only Whale Heritage Site. These animals do not merely pass through; they raise their young here, navigating a corridor that is increasingly filled with boat traffic, noise, and nutrient runoff that triggers oxygen-depleting algal blooms. Here it is also worth noting the various unsustainable whale-watching tours that are deeply intertwined with the lack of regulation and the pressures of massification. The ocean keeps a record of this pressure, and right now, that record suggests a system that is struggling to sustain itself.
The land tells a similar story. In a region already facing water scarcity, new golf courses and other unsustainable projects are still being planned, demanding resources the island simply cannot spare. Meanwhile, institutions like Loro Parque remain at the center of fierce debate regarding the ethics of keeping wild cetaceans in captivity for profit. These are not just isolated projects; they represent a relentless drive to extract more value from a finite environment.”
In April 2024, 200,000 people took to the streets across the archipelago under the banner “Canarias se agota”— the Canaries are exhausted. A year later, in May 2025, thousands were out again. These were not fringe protests. They were teachers, nurses, young families, and small business owners — people who love this place and are watching it change in ways they didn’t choose and are strongly affected by. Their message was specific and important: this model and this reality are not working, and something has to change.
It is a stark reminder that a tourism model which extracts value without managing its consequences is not just an economic risk, but an ecological and social one. I spent a year researching exactly how this happened — the water system, the governance structures, the economic dependencies, the historical layers underneath all of it. What follows is an attempt to explain it honestly, because the situation here deserves more than reassuring language about sustainable tourism. It deserves a clear outline of what is actually going on.
The Canary Islands at a Crossroads
Let’s be straightforward: The current tourism model in the Canary Islands is fundamentally unstable, designed around volume rather than value, oriented toward external profit rather than local wellbeing, and governed in ways that consistently prioritise industry interests over ecological and social limits. That needs to change, and changing it would make a real difference.
Firstly, there are simply too many tourists. Not as a provocative statement but as a factual one. Tenerife is a small volcanic island of just over 2,000 km², roughly half of which is protected natural space. Nine million visitors a year with no off-season means constant pressure on the water table, roads, hospitals, housing, and communities. The research on the Island’s carrying capacity is clear: this scale of mass tourism is not compatible with the long-term ecological health of the island or the quality of life of the people who live on it.
What makes this particularly challenging is that the political response has largely been to point at GDP, where tourism contributes 35% of it, and use that number to justify continued expansion. More investment, higher visitor numbers, bigger infrastructure. But GDP is a measure of economic output with many limitations, not of sustainable development. It does not show who benefits from it, not of what it costs to produce, and not of whether the people living here are actually doing well. Using it to promote a model that is visibly exhausting the island and its communities is a risky argument. It is a yet so often seen choice, one that prioritizes short-term growth over long-term resilience.
Many locals work in tourism, yet wages rarely keep pace with the soaring cost of living. People serving in hotels, restaurants, and shops often find they cannot afford to live in the places they work, let alone enjoy the islands’ beauty during their rare time off. For many, the island has long stopped being a home, it has become a product to be sold. This extends to migrant workers who form a significant part of the tourism workforce. They contribute essential labour to the model, yet many remain in precarious positions, caught between contributing to an economy they cannot fully participate in and facing uncertain legal and social standing. They work hard for a system that doesn’t always secure their future but yet depends on their contributions.
The pressure is permanent and it accumulates, which is why the consequences have become impossible to ignore.
What this actually looks like for a family living here
Imagine a couple in Tenerife. Both work in tourism —one in a hotel, one in a restaurant— because that is where the jobs are. They don’t dislike their work, but they are trapped inside the very system they sustain. Their combined income is around €2,200 a month. On paper, that sounds manageable. But a small flat in the south, near their workplaces, now rents for €1,200 or more. Landlords have calculated that holiday rentals earn three times that, so long-term tenants are priced out. So they live an hour away in the north.
The morning isn’t just a commute; it’s a logistical battle. Parking near their work is impossible. They rely on the bus, stuck on roads never built for this volume, the journey taking twice as long as with the car. When they do drive, the cost of fuel eats the little margin they have left, a tax on simply existing in a place running out of space. After rent and fuel and all other expenses, there is little left. No savings. No sufficient buffer for emergencies. Now imagine they have two children depending on them. There is no security for their children’s future. They are working six days a week, sacrificing rest, just to cover the basics.
This is where the Canary Islands differ from the rest of Europe. In most destinations, tourism and local life coexist. Here, the two economies have collided. Locals are paid wages typical of a low-margin service industry, yet they face a cost of living driven by international demand. Housing isn’t just expensive; it has been converted into a product for visitors, removing it from the local market. The result is a permanent squeeze: the more successful the tourism industry becomes, the less viable it is for the people who make it work.
This creates a growing fear among locals: not just about surviving this month, but about whether there is any future here at all. They are working harder, but they are falling behind. For many, the question is no longer how to make ends meet, but whether their children will ever be able to afford to live on the island they call home.
The Path Foward
The frustration is real, but the path forward requires more than protest. For too long, the debate has been polarized: locals versus visitors, economy versus ecology. This division paralyzes progress. The breakthrough isn’t just in recognizing the problem, but in building a coalition that can solve it.
This is the specific role Canary Green is playing. We are not here to pick sides, but to connect the dots that have been separated for decades. We hope to bring together the data from researchers, the lived reality of residents, the operational constraints of businesses, and the regulatory tools of the government into a single conversation. When these groups speak past each other, nothing changes. When they speak to each other, solutions emerge and they find a way to pull on the same stings.
Our goal is to turn the energy of the streets into the architecture of a new model. We are facilitating the dialogue that moves us from “this is broken” to “here is how we fix it.” By creating a neutral space where stakeholders can align on shared limits and shared goals, the idea is helping to build a tourism model that actually works for the islands, not just against them.
The reason to feel hopeful — and what to do with it
Here is what is also true: the Canary Islands have something genuinely worth protecting, and more and more people — locals and visitors alike — are starting to say that out loud. The protests were not just expressions of exhaustion. They were expressions of love for a place, and a refusal to watch it disappear quietly. Businesses are beginning to ask different questions about how they operate. Researchers and communities are building alternatives. Young people who grew up here are organising, writing, speaking, insisting on being heard. That is not nothing. That is actually the beginning of something.
Change in systems like this one rarely arrives dramatically. It accumulates through individual choices that shift norms, through conversations that change what feels possible, through enough people deciding that the way things are is not the way they have to be. You reading this, and thinking about it seriously, is part of that accumulation. So is sharing it with someone who might not have thought about it before. So is choosing, on your next visit or in your daily life here, to act in ways that reflect what you actually value rather than what is simply most convenient.
The Canary Islands are still extraordinary. The question of whether they remain that way — for the people who live here, for the ecosystems that make them what they are, and yes, for the people who want to visit and experience something real — is genuinely open. And genuinely open means it can still go the right way.
We would like your help making sure it does. Come as a guest who cares. Stay as a voice that counts. And if you want to be more directly part of what Canary Green is building, the door is open.
If you are visiting
Travelling is a privilege, and many people who come to the Canary Islands arrive in genuine appreciation of this place. What we are asking is not for guilt but for awareness — of the limits of a place, of what your presence costs and what it could give back, of the difference between consuming a destination and actually engaging with it.
In practical terms: staying in locally owned accommodation changes materially where money goes. Eating and drinking locally keeps economic activity circulating in the community. Reading about the water situation (read here) before you arrive gives you an honest picture of why being careful with water here is a real necessity, not a symbolic gesture. Going beyond the saturated tourist zones reduces pressure on areas already at breaking point and gives you a more genuine experience of what these islands actually are. And if you encounter frustration or ambivalence from local people, sitting with that rather than deflecting it matters — you are arriving at the end of a long story that you did not start but are, briefly, now part of.
Our directory offers curated inspiration for staying, eating, and exploring in ways that align with these values. For those ready to go further, becoming a “Sustainable Gangster” unlocks exclusive discounts on responsible experiences and connects you with our community. We also invite you to join our regular beach cleanups, a tangible way to give back to the coastlines you come to enjoy.
If you live here
You already know most of this. What we would add is that the conversation happening right now — about carrying capacity, about housing, about what the future of these islands should look like and for whom — needs local voices in it consistently, actively shaping the path of change. The scale of what people felt in 2024 and 2025 was significant. What determines whether that energy translates into actual change is whether it becomes sustained, organised, specific impact on the institutions and processes that make these decisions: local elections, planning consultations, community organisations, and spaces where these conversations happen with enough substance to be actionable. Canary Green is one of those spaces, and we would love more people, particularly locals, in it.
The Shared Path Forward
So, what does a better model look like, and why does it matter to you as a visitor? It starts with the understanding that the Canary Islands cannot sustain the current “volume over value” approach without losing the very things that make them special. A few of the solutions could be:
- Fewer (rental) cars and better public transport mean less gridlock, cleaner air, and a more authentic way to experience the islands, rather than being stuck in traffic jams.
- Strict enforcement on sewage and waste ensures that the beaches and oceans you come to enjoy remain pristine, protecting the ecosystems that define this place.
- Keeping money local by supporting independent businesses and respecting resident pricing ensures that the community thrives, preserving the culture and warmth you came to find, rather than seeing it replaced by generic, foreign-owned chains.
- Giving locals a real voice in planning decisions guarantees that the islands evolve to protect their future, ensuring they remain a living home, not just a backdrop for a vacation.
- Join movements and projects that supported positive change to join force with likeminded people and create a community
This isn’t about restricting your freedom; it’s about protecting the destination you love. When we align on these limits, enforcing environmental standards, and prioritizing local wellbeing, we create a tourism model that is resilient, authentic, and sustainable. It means your visit supports a community that can continue to welcome you, rather than one that is pushed to the brink. The choice is ours: we can continue to extract value until the system breaks, or we can build a model where the islands flourish for residents and visitors alike.
Canary Green’s tips to enjoying sustainable tourism in Canary Islands
Visiting Canary Islands on holiday doesn’t give you free rein to leave your values and principles at home. We encourage travellers to seek out sustainable options and keep up with environmental practices while travelling. Our top tips for a relaxed and wholesome stay include:
- Consider green transport options. Are you able to take a ferry to the island instead of flying? While you are here is a car necessary? Investigate public transport links or choose green options such as electric cars, green-hydrogen cars or e-bikes.
- Choose destinations that value sustainability and choose green alternatives such as solar power, recycling and energy-efficient architecture. This extends to places that value workers’ rights and the impact on the local community.
- Bring your own water bottle with you and refill it instead of buying single-use plastic bottles.
- Make use of the recycling when out and about and don’t just throw your rubbish in the nearest bin.
- Take advantage of local knowledge and immerse yourself in the culture through campaigns such as #Ilovecanarias and #meatfreemondaycanarias.
- Most of all, have fun and enjoy your time in the Canary Islands.
Thank you
Thank you to everyone involved in this Canary Green project where our aim is to help promote sustainable tourism in the Canary Islands.
Do you want us to find you more sustainable choices? Please support us and donate today!
- John Beckley; Founder of Canary Green non profit
- Canary Green non profit:
- Media communication & partnerships coordination: Aurora Bus
- Marine & coastal project manager: Daphne Geißen
- AI consultant: Sebastian Betz
- Media communication & partnerships coordination: Catarina Tuerlings Pires
Sustainable Development Associate: Claudia Scharff
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