249
The short-sightedness, narrow-mindedness, and egotism of some of our
politicians, and the manner in which they systematically deceive and manipulate the public to stay in power are very worrying. In the case that we are
concerned with here, it beggars the imagination that such important public
institutions as the Island Cabildo, being in possession of several independent
and concordant rigorous scientific and technical studies demonstrating the
innocuousness of ORM waste products, should continue shamelessly to
deceive their citizens. They were also aware of the notably higher visibility of
the island and the increase in tourism as a consequence of the ORM’s prestige.
But no matter. One Cabildo president even went so far as to demand that my
title of Adoptive Son of the Island be withdrawn because of the harm I was
doing to La Palma. The ecologists denounced me for committing an ecological crime. It all got to the point at which the presence of the IAC’s observatory
at Roque de los Muchachos was considered on the island as a burden and
obstacle to its development.
Such, amazingly, was the panorama in La Palma at the beginning of this
century, so Luis Martínez and I decided to take a conceptual leap forward and
aim our sights high. We organized on the island a big international conference
to roll back this tide of negativity. We sought the help of an expert in such
matters: Cipriano Marín. I had met this strange person during the World
Conference on Sustainable Tourism, which he had organized in Lanzarote in
1995, where I had given a talk on ‘Astronomy: gathering experience for cultural tourism in the Canaries’. Together, the three of us planned the Starlight
International Conference in La Palma in 2007. We were careful in its preparation and tried to secure the participation of people of great importance.
Cipriano soon managed to arrange the participation of the International
Astronomical Union, UNESCO, the Spanish Government, the Canarian
Government, the Cabildo of La Palma, the World Tourism Organization, the
European Parliament, the greater part of the UN conventions and programmes relating to nature conservation and the environment (CBD, CMSPNUMA, the Ramsar Convention), the MaB Programme, the European
Landscape Convention, and institutions and organizations from over thirty
countries.
The meeting was convened under the title A Common Heritage: An
International Conference in Defence of the Quality of the Night Sky and the Right
to Observe Stars. Its formal objective was to promote a ‘universal declaration of
the right to starlight’, as an expression of the commitment to protect from
threat the common patrimony of humanity. But our underlying intention was
to make a statement in La Palma so that its authorities and citizens should
realize that we were not contaminating anything, and that they should
23 The Starlight Foundation…
The short-sightedness, narrow-mindedness, and egotism of some of our
politicians, and the manner in which they systematically deceive and manipulate the public to stay in power are very worrying. In the case that we are
concerned with here, it beggars the imagination that such important public
institutions as the Island Cabildo, being in possession of several independent
and concordant rigorous scientific and technical studies demonstrating the
innocuousness of ORM waste products, should continue shamelessly to
deceive their citizens. They were also aware of the notably higher visibility of
the island and the increase in tourism as a consequence of the ORM’s prestige.
But no matter. One Cabildo president even went so far as to demand that my
title of Adoptive Son of the Island be withdrawn because of the harm I was
doing to La Palma. The ecologists denounced me for committing an ecological crime. It all got to the point at which the presence of the IAC’s observatory
at Roque de los Muchachos was considered on the island as a burden and
obstacle to its development.
Such, amazingly, was the panorama in La Palma at the beginning of this
century, so Luis Martínez and I decided to take a conceptual leap forward and
aim our sights high. We organized on the island a big international conference
to roll back this tide of negativity. We sought the help of an expert in such
matters: Cipriano Marín. I had met this strange person during the World
Conference on Sustainable Tourism, which he had organized in Lanzarote in
1995, where I had given a talk on ‘Astronomy: gathering experience for cultural tourism in the Canaries’. Together, the three of us planned the Starlight
International Conference in La Palma in 2007. We were careful in its preparation and tried to secure the participation of people of great importance.
Cipriano soon managed to arrange the participation of the International
Astronomical Union, UNESCO, the Spanish Government, the Canarian
Government, the Cabildo of La Palma, the World Tourism Organization, the
European Parliament, the greater part of the UN conventions and programmes relating to nature conservation and the environment (CBD, CMSPNUMA, the Ramsar Convention), the MaB Programme, the European
Landscape Convention, and institutions and organizations from over thirty
countries.
The meeting was convened under the title A Common Heritage: An
International Conference in Defence of the Quality of the Night Sky and the Right
to Observe Stars. Its formal objective was to promote a ‘universal declaration of
the right to starlight’, as an expression of the commitment to protect from
threat the common patrimony of humanity. But our underlying intention was
to make a statement in La Palma so that its authorities and citizens should
realize that we were not contaminating anything, and that they should
23 The Starlight Foundation…