San Bartolomé de Tirajana, the epicenter of tourism in southern Gran Canaria and home to one of the largest forest areas on the island's southern slopes, has been left out of the first round of contracts awarded under the Gran Canaria Pastorea program. Although the public company Gesplan has begun distributing the total budget of €378.239,88 allocated for the 2026-2028 period, the municipality's local shepherds are not included in this initial round of institutional agreements. The first allocation of public funds has been concentrated exclusively on livestock farms in the mountain peaks and the north of the island, leaving the activation of "human firebreaks" in the southern watersheds pending.
The absence of Tirajana from this initial operational phase has raised concerns among forestry technicians due to the vulnerability of its large ravines to the threat of major forest fires. Gesplan's specifications assigned a significant score to the proximity of livestock pens to areas of forest classified as critical. While municipalities like Artenara, Gáldar, and Valsequillo have secured their first prevention contracts thanks to the swift action of livestock farmers such as Ofelia María Vega, David Ismael Moreno, and Rubén Daniel Miranda, the protection zones on the southern slopes will have to wait for subsequent resolutions of the process before the goat herds can be moved in.
The delay in the incorporation of shepherds from San Bartolomé de Tirajana coincides with the general difficulties encountered in the bidding process to cover the entirety of its forest risk map. The program comprises a complex puzzle of up to 59 lots, designed to allow the bureaucracy to adapt to the traditional grazing routes of each region. The lack of available flocks or the obstacles to obtaining permits for passage across adjacent private land have already led to several areas of the island being declared deserted, a scenario of rural abandonment that the managers of the Gran Canaria Mosaico strategy are trying to rectify before the high temperatures of June trigger fire alerts in the south of the island.
