The relationship between human beings and the environment in which they develop their strategies — whether these be for growth or mere survival — is one of the great themes of our time.
It is likely that this analogy — due to its enormous potential for transversality — lies within other problems, as it determines the degree of wellbeing, freedom and sustainability of a land. Man inhabits, transforms, and makes use of the spaces he occupies as no other species has done in Earth’s history. The success of human adaptation has brought with it well-known atrocities, but also the emergence and progressive development first of acceptance, and then of knowledge.
The consequences of such excesses are clearly reflected in the sort of “sensitivity to nature” expressed in contemporary thought, which has already brought about political actions at a large scale.
The tension that exists between development and conservation, in the clash of welfare versus waste, or in the divergence between the preservation and the enjoyment of our natural heritage, is rooted in other types of problems. These are problems in which the economy, wealth distribution, industry, politics, and social issues (in the broadest sense of the term), are involved in a decisive way.
This generates a wealth of opinions, as diverse as the world is large, and makes the environmental issue one of the most exciting and necessary discussions to be had at the beginning of this century.
Against this ideological backdrop, a film festival such as the one Garachico offers to the people of the Canary Islands and the world takes on a special interest.
This festival takes up the witness of the one held in Puerto de la Cruz in the 80s, which was a pioneer when it came to the kinds of subject matters at hand. Today, its aim is to fully integrate into a contemporary perspective that is more difficult and problematic in itself. But it is without a doubt a useful and provocative endeavor.
The issue here is to also do this in the Canary Islands and have it be “from” the Canaries: an island territory that is in the path of all of today’s great routes of information, commerce, tourism, transport of goods, population migrations, cultural exchange,…
This territory’s fragility and natural riches become additional arguments that bring need and urgency to the act of thinking coherently and comprehensively about ecology and its actions.