NewsTracker Answers for week of Apr 22, 2024

Q: Tens of thousands of people across Spain's Canary Islands rallied last week against mass tourism they say is overwhelming the chain of islands off the west coast of Africa. Where are the Canary Islands?

Circle the area on this map

Q: While tourism attracted by the Canaries’ beaches and sunshine accounts for 40% of the islands’ jobs, the protesters want limits on development they say is harming residents and the environment. Geographically, Atlantic islands are known as …

A. Archipelago

B. Barrier islands

C. Cays

D. Desert islands

A. An archipelago is a chain or group of islands like the British Isles, the Philippines or Hawaiian Islands. Like Hawaii, the Canary Islands were created by volcanic eruptions over a hotspot in the Earth’s crust.

Q: Tourists outnumber the islands’ 2.2 million by a ratio of ...

A. 2 to 1

B. 4 to 1

C. 6 to 1

D. 8 to 1

C. In 2023, 13.9 million tourists visited the archipelago’s seven main islands. The protesters don’t want to end tourism, but they say it needs to be limited. Water resources are being over exploited, and residents are being priced out of housing by short-term rentals and home sales to foreigners.

Q: Most of the Canaries' tourists come from which country?

A. Germany

B. Morocco

C. Spain (mainland)

D. United Kingdom

D. Residents of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland accounted fro 29% of the tourists in 2007. Spanish citizens from outside the autonomous community of the Canary Islands accounted for 22%, and Germans accounted for 21%.

Q: What is increasing much faster than tourism in the Canaries?

A. Airline traffic

B. Migrant arrivals

C. Pirate attacks

D. Tropical storms

B. The number of migrants from West Africa who braved the Atlantic Ocean in fragile boats to reach Canary Islands jumped more than 1,000% in January from a year ago. A total of 7,270 irregular migrants arrived in the European Union islands compared with 566 in the same month in 2023.