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The socio-economic consequences of the volcanic eruption that destroyed part of the Valle de Aridane (La Palma, Canary Islands) in 2021 have provided a favourable context for strengthening a narrative that sees an intense and accelerated tourist development of La Palma as the only viable economic option for the island's future. Although the discourse is not new, the wide convergence of political and business actors that endorse it leads one to believe that it is the most solid attempt to reverse the traditional productive structure of the island. It is dominated by banana cultivation and a model of tourism development that is far away from the dominant patterns in the Canary Islands. In this paper, we analyze the territorial planning of tourism in La Palma since 1990, demonstrating the role played in its evolution by the transition from Keynesian- style regulatory approaches to others clearly indebted to neo-liberal principles. It also shows the validity of the postulates of tourism development formulated in 1971 to understand the territorial model aspired to by the aforementioned actors, who use the crisis cycle culminating in the volcanic eruption of 2021 to construct a narrative that justifies their model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of current climate change, it is a priority to develop mechanisms that facilitate the integration of the public's perspective in the fight against this phenomenon. Organisations such as the IPCC have highlighted the importance of paying attention, in the inexorable transition that is approaching, to the perception and experiences of the population as sources of information complementary to scientific evidence. In addition, it is of interest to check the assessment of institutional action in this respect and the degree of social awareness of this global challenge. Thus, this paper, based on an extensive survey carried out on the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands), analyses the resident population's perception of the causes and effects of climate change, as well as their environmental commitment and knowledge of governmental mitigation and adaptation initiatives. There is a high degree of concern about the issue among citizens, who support the existence of climate change, say they know what it consists of and generally have a negative view of the actions of public administrations, and are unaware of the initiatives that have been approved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]