The City Council of Santa Lucía de Tirajana has requested its adherence to the 'Declaration on the Defense of the Night Sky and the Right to Starlight'
The City Council of Santa Lucía de Tirajana has requested its adherence to the 'Declaration on the Defense of the Night Sky and the Right to Starlight'. This was agreed last Wednesday by the City Council Governing Board at the proposal of the Tourism Department. The person responsible for this area, Ana Mayor, reported this Tuesday at a press conference about the steps that have been taken “to become a Starlight municipality, today we are here taking the first step to obtain that certification that will allow us to value quality. of the night sky, not only as a cultural, scientific and natural resource, but as another tourist attraction that can generate direct and indirect benefits for our population.”
Also present at the information call were the first deputy mayor, Santiago Rodríguez, and the director of the Starlight Foundation, Antonia Valera Pérez. The mayor of Tourism pointed out that “Santa Lucía de Tirajana is one of the first municipalities on our island outside the Biosphere Reserve that adheres to this declaration, with which we want to highlight the importance of clean skies, enhancing the value of “This heritage that we have for science, education, culture and also for the responsible tourism that we are promoting.”
The director of the Starlight Foundation, Antonia Valera, recalled that “at the Madrid Tourism Fair (FITUR) we spoke with councilor Ana Mayor and she told us about the desire of this municipality to join the Starlight declaration, and since then we have been communicating to take this step for Santa Lucía de Tirajana, because recovering the sky is recovering sustainability, it is guaranteeing the quality of life and defending biodiversity, it is recovering a heritage that belongs to everyone.” Antonia Valera clarified that "this accession does not mean building new infrastructure, rather it is about taking advantage of what exists, a viewpoint, a church that is not used, etc., to be able to rehabilitate new spaces to contemplate the stars."
The first deputy mayor, Santiago Rodríguez, stated that “if we are here today it is because behind it there is very important work that has been carried out in these last two years, I want to remember that when we were in Fitur in January 2020, we exposed all the benefits tourist attractions of our municipality from the coast to the summit, and we told the promoters that we did not want to compete with the beach and mass tourism of our neighboring municipalities, and we talked to them about the beauty of our summit, the night silence of our capital, the most beautiful on the island.” Rodríguez added that “some tourism professionals were interested in our municipality and convinced us that Santa Lucía de Tirajana had incredible potential for Starlight tourism.”
The 'Declaration on the Defense of the Night Sky and the Right to Starlight' is also known as the 'La Palma Declaration' because it was signed on the beautiful island in April 2007. Following the decision of the Governing Board of the City Council of Santa Lucía de Tirajana to adhere to this declaration, now technicians from the Star Light Foundation will have to come to carry out audits on air quality, low cloud cover, the quality of astronomical images, the technicians will have to do a study during a full moon week Routine measurements will then be carried out in summer and winter. According to the director of the foundation, external auditors will also come to prepare a report that they will have to take to the Starlight foundation. Antonia Valera pointed out that “we are already in the first phase, now we will start with the measurements of the quality of the sky, in spring we would already be in the audit and I think that in summer it could already be said if Santa Lucía de Tirajana receives the Star Light municipality certificate ”.