Carlos Mallo Molina: So you have at the other side this amazing Teno-Rasca that is protected all year. Basically, you can go scuba diving in 350 days a year. it’s like. The perfect spot. the weather is amazing. All year. the marine life is outstanding. there is just whales, there is sharks, there is a lot of sea turtle turtles. There is sea grass, there is corals there. All of the marine life that we have in the Atlantic can be found in this specific area. So basically, when I was there and I was enjoying all, feeling that area, like understanding more and more about this marine protected area. But at the same time, I was building the road that connects a future port that was going to be built in the center, in the gravity center of a marine protected area. I was thinking like there is something wrong in this development. There is something wrong in all of this planification that has been established by the government.

Mike DiGirolamo (narration): Welcome to the Mongabay Newscast. I’m your co-host, Mike DiGirolamo. Bringing you weekly conversations with experts, authors, scientists and activists working on the front lines of conservation, shining a light on some of the most pressing issues facing our planet, and holding people in power to account. This podcast is edited on Gadigal Land. Today on the Newscast, I speak with Carlos Mallo Molina, founder & CEO of the nonprofit Innoceana. Molina calls the island of Tenerife in the Canary Island’s home, which he came to in 2012 to work as a civil engineer. He fell in love with Teno-Rasca marine protected area and its unique biodiversity. However, he discovered that the highway project he was working on for a proposed port in the middle of this biodiversity would threaten it. Molina left his job and began campaigning against the very project he was helping to build. In part, due to his efforts, highlighting the project’s impacts the Canary Islands government shut the project down in 2021. Instead, it approved an environmental education center in its place for his work and his influence. Molina was awarded the 2025 Goldman Environmental Prize. In this conversation, Molina talks to me about his deep connection with the ocean. What led to his decision to leave his lucrative career, the unique biodiversity of Tenerife, and what he hopes to achieve in the future. He also explains to me the immense pressure the Canary Islands face as a leading European tourist destination, which the islands both rely upon and negatively impacted by. He details the conflicting sentiments of local communities wanting employment from this sector versus those seeking to preserve the island and its waters. But Molina expressed hope that the Canary Islands is beginning to see the tide turn towards sustainable tourism and valuing environmental protection.

Mike: Hi Carlos. Thank you for joining us. Welcome to the Mongabay Newscast and congratulations on being awarded the Goldman Prize.

Carlos: Thank you, Mike. It is my pleasure to be here.

Mike: So first, can you take us back to the beginning of your story? Like you, you worked as a civil engineer in Tenerife, but you became concerned about the environmental impacts of this port project. Take us back to the beginning of your story.

Carlos: Yeah, and maybe, my story start even before that because my dad was a civil engineer who was building ports in the Spanish coast coastline, so I was always verybinded to the ocean and very connected. And I was as like, I was a divers since I was a kid. And I think that connected me to the ocean in a very deep way, but also seeing my dad and is your father is an engineer successful, I wanted to follow the path. So I actually follow the path and study civil engineer myself. And then I moved to Tenerife in my first project and that’s where I started Just being myself, a real civil, engineer in charge of major construction projects. But at the same time, Tenerife is a blue island. Everything is connected by the ocean there. Like wherever you are, you see the ocean. And I think that was where I click and it was like, okay, this place is, just needs to be protected, addicted.

Mike: So in, in what sort of like clicked in your brain where you thought it needs to be protected? Like when did you start to become concerned?

Carlos: One, one of the interesting things is that the road I was building, the motorway, I was building the highway to the actual coast. when I discovered that road was going to connect to a future port, and that was the area where I was going diving every weekend and in my free time, and it was full of sea turtles. He was full of whales, he was full of marine life. And so I think understanding how my impact was going to destroy actually a marine protected area. I think that was where I has have my biggest click in my brain. I was like, I’m going to do something to, I need to do something to change what I’m doing in the way that I can protect this ocean.

Mike: And on that note, can you talk a little bit more, this is the Teno-Rasca marine protected area you’re talking about. you’ve mentioned that it has a lot of marine life. Can you detail more of what it’s like.

Carlos: So the Teno-Rasca, or MP, a marine protected area of, Teno-Rasca is the southwest of Tenerife. The southwest of Tenerife is a very calm water because you have the trade winds coming from the northeast and the island works as a shield. So you have at the other side this amazing Teno-Rasca that is protected all year. Basically, you can go scuba diving in 350 days a year. it’s like. The perfect spot. the weather is amazing. All year. The, marine life is outstanding. there is just whales, there is sharks, there is a lot of sea turtle turtles. There is sea grass, there is corals there. All of the marine life that we have in the Atlantic can be found in this specific area. So basically when I. When I was there and I was enjoying all, feeling that area, like understanding more and more about this marine protected area. But at the same time, I was building the road that connects a future port that was going to be built in the, center, in the gravity center of a marine protected area. I was thinking like there is something wrong in this development. There is something wrong in all of this planification that has been established by the government.

Mike: And so then in 2018 is when you left the project and you started a nonprofit, right?

Carlos: Yeah, I, was, it was before because when we finished the road and I have the opportunity to move in to England to build another project about high speed train. But when I was in England, I was listening a lot of news of, okay, the port in the Canary Islands is going to finally start soon. And listening to that and going on my holidays from England to Tenerife. I was like, I need to, quit. I need to do something more meaningful that really I, where I can do something to protect this area in the world.

Mike: And, how did the company behind the project respond to that? Did, they do any, say, anything to you?

Carlos: There was no company yet because it was in the very early stages of planification that the It did, it wasn’t public like basically, it wasn’t offered for bidding for companies yet, so there was no company in charge of the construction of the project yet,

Mike: And so you started to document the impacts of the project on the ecosystem. Can you walk me through how you did this and what kinds of data you began to collect?

Carlos: Yeah, when, I started at the Marine Conservation Organization in Tenerife we established our headquarters in Guía de Isora. Guía de Isora is literally the municipality where the port was going to be built. So basically, I st I we rented a house and I started bringing scientists from different parts of the world. We hired some people in the area that were working with us as a mar marine biologist mainly, and we were like starting creating projects. Within the municipality to make people understand what they have in front of their houses. Because a lot of people in the Canary Islands have never been scuba diving.

They’ve never been under the water. They’ve seen always the water as this surface blue area that is amazing and beautiful, but they don’t know what is underneath. So one of our main projects that we started with was to create a virtual reality platform. Where people can actually, from their houses, they can see what they have in front of their houses, so they understand the beauty and, like the richness of all of the biodiversity that lives under the water there.

Mike: And, so what were some of like the responses you got when people were starting to see all this biodiversity?

Carlos: At the beginning it was, a bit of a lot a, a different responses. some people were saying like. this needs to be protected. So actually some people were like, wow. It, I never, thought we have this under the water in front of my house and wow, this needs to, be protected. But other people were like, you are coming here to sew this because you want to stop the poor, or because you want to store the, development and we need the tourists to, to, grow and to have more jobs. So it was a bit of a mix of responses from different people.

Mike: That, that sounds like a really difficult situation to to navigate. How did you eventually coalesce with local people and get them to work with you on your campaign?

Carlos: It was, there is a lot of different layers in, this story. Like you have first you have the local people that love the ocean and they are already convinced and you don’t really need to do much. They are already your supporters. But then there is all of these people that are very bind to the tourism and they want more hotels, and they were to build more infrastructure for tourism. And just a side note, the ca, the only TE has 6 million tourists every year going there. And a lot of them come from England and I would say number one is the British tourism. But there is other countries in Europe and in the world, even from New York, from Tenerife, from New York, you can, New York, you can fly straight to Tenerife. So there are two international airports. So imagine how the pressure of tourism in this small island is huge. But still there is people who still believe that this is the model that the island needs. So that, was very confrontational with us because this port was going to bring the capacity of 400 recreational boats and that creates a lot of traction with the tourism. So that people were pretty much against our ideas from the very beginning. And then we have the politicians. And the politicians at the very beginning, especially the politicians of ada, so they were so much pro port, they wanted to build the port, they wanted to continue developing. and then you have the fishermen that, the fishermen part of them were divided, like part of them wanting the port, part of them didn’t want the port. So it was just a lot of different scenarios and, and people with different ideas.

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Mike: And so eventually you actually helped influence the government to cancel the project. how did that, how did you achieve that?

Carlos: There were. So first of all, of course it wasn’t just me. Imagine like we were a platform actually, we came together, a lot of people from different backgrounds, different organizations, and we went together to create like a platform that was called Salvar Fonsalia, that means “save Fonsalia.” And it was amazing because this platform has. Very different disciplines and very different like kind of people. And I was one of them because I was a strange actor in all of this because a civil engineer who is against the construction is something almost oxymoronic situation. Like you cannot be a civil engineer, I be against the poor. So that, that, I think that’s why my role was key in all of this process. But there was amazing people, biologists, underwater photographers, and the underwater bi videographers, economists. Lawyers. So it was just this amount of people and we have two opportunities, two things. Make a huge difference in this campaign. One was that Europe declared the emergency. The climate emergency. So for first time in, in the history, Europe says, Hey guys, we are in the middle of a crisis with climate change. So that was a eye-opener because many people were like, wow, this never happened ever in my life. What’s going on. And at the sa, almost at the same time, I think it was one year apart from each other, it was Covid 2020 Covid hit and everybody was at home. Everybody was staying at home and like looking at their television and thinking, oh my God, I need to go outta my house or I’m going to kill myself, because it’s just so much pressure being. For four months in your house. And I think that helped people understand how important is nature not only for, development, not only for tourists, but also for, just to live, just to be a human being. We need nature and the effect on Nebraska is one of the places where you go and you feel in nature. So I think people, a lot of people have this mental switch where they started thinking maybe protecting is what we need to do now.

Mike: Was there any was there any like particular like evidence or pieces of data that really heavily influenced the government in this decision?

Carlos: Hundred percent. So there were also, I would, mention two. One was. Since 2018 with my team, but other people too, we’re collecting data and sending to the government saying, Hey guys, you have Green Sea Turtles, Chelon, Amir. A lot of them, the biggest population in the Canary Islands is in this section where the port is going to be built. Another piece of data that was critical is to show the government that there were 350 tropical pilot whales living all year in front of the port. So basically we have the biggest population of pilot whales in the world that live as a resident in a specific area, and that was literally in front of that future port. And then on the other side, apart from soiling, all of those endangered species that were living there. We also proved the government that the impact like environmental impact assessment was out of date. So they were playing with this environmental impact assessment that was never going to work again because they, when they made it was in 2010, it was out of date, but also it didn’t include a lot of species that were endangered at the time. Basically when they make the environmental as assessment, those species well in were in danger, but now they are. So that’ll change the game a lot.

Mike: And wow. That’s and what other factors influenced their decision, do you know?

Carlos: To me it was the opportunity of covid, make people understand that protecting nature was a priority. And I think the government understood that this could be both. So when you are a politician, you want the votes from people, and if people are like leaning toward the nature, you want to help them, you want to help them, you. So I think that was a very convenient situation where the government say, Hey we can take an opportunity out of this and this port is never going to be built. The European Union is making a lot of pressure to protect the ocean to protect nature. So I think the government saw the opportunity to switch and to, get yeah, benefit from the opportunity,

Mike: And so now instead of there being a port, there’s gonna be a marine education center here. So what, led to that decision?

Carlos: When all of these or the government finally says, okay, we are going against this port, it is not going to happen. It was a big bomb because a lot of construction companies were like, Hey, what you mean we need to make this port? And a lot of hotel companies were like. This is bad for the island, whatever. But the government was very rigid, was, okay, this is not gonna happen. So with my organization within North, we continue working to find solutions, long-term solutions. So we were applying for different grants to the European Union Funds to, to get the money to make a marine conservation and education center in the place where the port was going to be built. Because in our view, it is if we do that, this is a long lasting solution. We are going to educate. All of the kids in the area, we are going to help development. We are going to create something that goes in the right direction to protect a marine protected area. So I think Europe like this was very interesting because in Ana, my organization is a very small organization like comparing to big organizations. But we were awarded with this big European fund in partnered with other organizations, but in Ana is the leader organization of this. So now we are in the middle of this project that needs to be finished in the next two years and a half, and we are working hard to have the Marine Conservation Center on time.

Mike: Congratulations. And when do you so you mentioned in the next two years, so when do you expect it might be fully operational?

Carlos: I expect the, infrastructure, we are reusing infrastructure that was abandoned in Alcala. That is the village that is in this area. And that was where the port of Fonsalia was going to be built. And we are trying to have all of the, in the museum of the ocean, of the sea, the, ocean class, classroom and all the infrastructure that we are creating will be finished by 2027.

Mike: That’s amazing. Yeah. and do you expect that, maybe this is a larger question. Do you envision a more sustainable tourism sector in the Canary Islands? In the years and decades going forward with more actions like this? I.

Carlos: I totally see that. I think that there is a, when I started in Ana in 2018, the idea of marine conservation in Spain was just starting, was, it was almost like a new thing, a new idea. But today I, believe there is a lot of more people and companies that are seeing this as a real opportunity of doing things in a different way, create eco-tourism, but more than eco-tourism. Now they are talking about the regenerative re regenerative tourism. So a tour that actually. Has no impact but also support the environ. I think this is still far and it’s very difficult to go into that line, but there is interest of the private sector. There is interest of the government. We are, for first time in the history of my organization, we are partnering with the local government of the Canary Islands of Tenerife. And we are trying to restore the segrass. We are trying to educate the population and we are trying to do things in a very different way. So I, totally see a change in the direction of development in this island.

Mike: Is there anything about the Canary Islands that you wish more people knew?

Carlos: A hundred percent. I think the Canary Islands is a gem in the middle of the Atlantic. Very unknown still. There is a lot of tourists, but the tourists that we have in the Canary Islands sometimes is not the most respectful tourist. I would love that. These tourists that is looking for countries like Costa Rica. Or countries that are very green and blue to, the world. I, envision that this tourism is going to start seeing the Canary Islands as this kind of place. So we will have more respectful tourists coming every year. So I think for me, is I. We are, the Canary Islands are the European, Hawaii, like everybody knows Hawaii, but not everybody knows the Canary Islands. And I like to think that the Canary Islands will become a blue destination for the world when people understand that we have whales all year, that we have a lot of marine life, beautiful scuba diving opportunities and. I want this to be translated into a more expensive tourist where people really spend the money to support the, not only the economy, but also the nature there. So I hope this is the direction that this will take.

Mike: And what other projects are on the horizon for you and your organization?

Carlos: So we’ve been very focused also on the seagrass. So the seagrass are these underwater plants that are like at, on the bottom of the sea in the Canary Islands. And they create oxygen. They sequestrate a lot of carbon dioxide. They create a lot of nurseries for fish. They also retain the sand on the beach. So it’s just this spectacular ecosystem that is very far to be known by the population in the Canary Islands. Still is just, it’s something that many people don’t even know that we have there. And I, want to, with the government now is starting to understand how important this is for the economy because without the seagrass we’ll lose so much, not only the fish, not only the sand, but we will lose like the opportunity of having those spectacular underwater landscapes. And with, within Innoceana we’ve been trying to focus into the restorations of these seagrass because in the last 20 years we lost 50% of the seagrass in the Canary Islands. So half of it, was lost in just two decades. And I think this is another of our focus, and I, would love to see that the seagrass start recovering from the past.

Mike: You told me a little bit about this at the beginning of the interview, but I just want to, I just want to know where did your strong connection to the ocean come from? Would you say?

Carlos: when I was born, in the North Atlantic of Spain, so I was north in Alethea coast. My dad was as I said, was a civil engineer. He was building ports, he was building different infrastructure, and every weekend he was bringing me to the ocean to swim and with him. So I was like. The water was so cold, I don’t think I could do it anymore. I don’t think I can go in that water anyway. Like now I’m more used to sub tropical or tropical waters. But I think being in the ocean with my dad and like understanding how beautiful, how much the ocean can give you and just being in the water and having this feeling of this blue feeling that you are happy and you after being to the ocean, everybody’s happy. It make me understand like how important the ocean is for. For humans, not only for the world, but for humans. we need it for our for our future. And I think that’s when I really created a huge connection with the ocean. Also. I was going surfacing when I was a teenager. I was like, I, done so many activities in the ocean that is just, I couldn’t live far from the ocean. That’s why today I’m in Madrid, but tomorrow I’m going to the Canary Islands again. I try not to be far from the ocean. More than, no more than two days.

Mike: Well, Carlos I wish you safe travels back to the Canary Islands and thank you so much for talking with me. It was a pleasure.

Carlos: Thank you, Mike. My pleasure.

Mike (narration): If you want to read about Carlos’s work and the other 2025 Goldman prize winners, find the article linked in the show notes. As always, if you are enjoying the Mongabay Newscast or any of our podcast content and you wanna help us out, I. We encourage you to spread the word about the work that we’re doing by telling a friend and leaving a review. Word of mouth is the best way to help expand our reach. But you can also support us by becoming a monthly sponsor via our Patreon Page at patreon.com/mongabay. Mongabay is a nonprofit news outlet, so even pledging a dollar per month makes a big difference, and it helps us offset production costs. So if you’re a fan of our audio reports from Nature’s Frontline, go to patreon.com/mongabay to learn more and support the Mongabay Newscast. You can also read our news and inspiration from Nature’s frontline at mongabay.com. Or you can follow us on social media, find Mongabay on LinkedIn at Mongabay News, and on Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, and TikTok, where our handle is @Mongabay or on YouTube @MongabayTV. Thanks as always for listening.