The houses are partially dug into the ground, to absorb and contain ground heat and are fitted with solar panels and small wind turbines. The houses have been placed in the optimum position to enhoy the winds that blow in from the north east. Recycling will also be practised on the site and a desalination plant will turn sea water into clean drinkable water.

Architect Maria Delgado is very relieved to finally see the project reach fruition. If it is a success, it will be the blueprint for estates of bioclimatic houses across the Canary Islands.

The 17,032 kms of tunnels are made up of three main levels that are linked by fissures, off shoots and the odd chasm. The lava came from Pico Viejo on the eastern slope of Mount Teide, started by an eruption 27,000 years ago and added to by later activity, inside the tubes, the different layers of lava can be clearly seen as well as smaller channels where water has followed the meandering of the caves.

Cueva del Viento is a steep 10 minute drive above Icod de los Vinos in the north of Tenerife, it is well signposted and less than 5 euros by taxi from Icod. The visitors centre is in the heart of the small village and was added for the reopening of the tunnels to the public in mid June after a 15 year closure. For the opening few months the tour is free but that is to be reviewed, you are recommended to wear sturdy shoes or hiking boots, and take an extra coat or pullover, the north is often cooler and cloudy and inside the tunnels, there is a distinct chill.

A minibus takes parties of around 20 at 10 am and Noon each day, starting with a 10 minute drive up into the pine forest. From there a 30 minute walk leads through the trees and onto the historic Camino Real track up into the mountains. The scenery is stunning, with Mount Teide in the background and vast ranges of flowers and plants en route. the entrance point to the cave is a heavy metal grill that opens upward to reveal stone steps hewn into the rock, before leading onto more sturdy modern metal stairs.

Once inside, the light on your hard helmet, powered by a waist belt power pack, will illuminate a 20 foot high chamber where you can gather to hear the first of the informative talks by your guide, with the help of a wall chart in Spanish and English. Moving onwards and downwards, the chamber narrows to a tunnel, where the roof is only just above your head. Small galleries feed off the main route, and stacks of worn rock almost block the way at times. There is a wealth of insect and small animal life in the tunnels but in the selected 1,200 metre stretch of the tour, you will probably only see some spiders, most of the creatures live in the less disturbed sections.

Walking is a slow and careful process as the floor is very rough and rocky, and the minimal lighting of the helmet lights only clears a small area ahead of you. Clambering up into one of the galleries, you get some idea of how far some of the smaller tunnels wander and it’s good to know the tunnels are bone dry despite strands of pine tree roots poking through the roof. At the end of the selected stretch of tunnel is a large chasm, just before another small opening up to the surface. This is sealed closed with another metal gate but that doesn’t stop the sun light and warmth making a fleeting appearance.

The tour includes a good 90 minutes below ground and is a real treat for all the senses. Tours have to be booked in advance via the website www.cuevadelviento.net or on 922815339. Cueva del Viento is the biggest of the volcanic tubes and caves in the Canary Islands but there are many of them, some still remain uncharted and potentially dangerous. The contrast between the destructive history of the volcano and the lush flora and pine trees, recovering well from last years fires, is startling and helps to show what a cycle of natural growth Tenerife has gone through. This Icod council backed tour is the perfect way to see the underside of Tenerife and appreciate some of its powerful and turbulent history.

Santa Cruz ayuntamiento (council) is introducing a new cycle hire scheme that costs just one euro per hour. The base for this new revolution is the Parque Garcia Sanabria, where they initially will have 16 single bikes and 4 tandems for people to hire 7 days a week. The scheme has been set up at a cost of 25,000 euros and will run for a year to see how popular it is. The people of Santa Cruz are about to find just how healthy cycling can be.

Lead singer of Fiction Plane, Joe Sumner (centre) , son of Gordon, better known as Sting, is no stranger to green issues, as he has a degree in Environmental Science from Richmond University, however it failed to fire his imagination and the lure of rock and roll took him down another path. Seton Daunt (left) , lead guitarist, was always drawn to bands “I was into groups like Nirvana and performed around Camden ” and drummer Pete Wilhoit (right) met the other 2 in New York in their early days of changing line ups, and they became the trio they are today. Pete had a wide music base “I studied jazz at Indiana University and was influenced by Stewart Copeland of The Police”. That proved to be very prophetic before meeting Joe and then last year supporting The Police on their U.S comeback tour.

So did the connections with The Police help Joe in the music business? “Not really, most people either didn’t help me as they assumed I knew everything about the business or they thought I was spoilt and had it all handed to me on a plate.” All that is history now as Fiction Plane have carved out their own career as a hard working live band, they did 200 concerts last year, and after a short break, they are off to North America supporting Snoop Dog.

The free concert in Tenerife must have been a strange experience after playing to packed houses at the Stade de France and Twickenham. The open air gig was bathed in hot sun, with Montaña Roque as a backdrop and palm trees swaying around them. There were a couple of thousand watching at the peak of the concert, but the opening band, Oscartienealas from Lanzarote, started with just a sprinkling as many were still on the beach or watching Spains Euro 2008 game. The summer of green music continues, and even as Fiction Plane were performing, leaflets were being handed out for the 2 day Eolica festival at the Granadilla wind park next month.

Linking the bus station in Santa Cruz to La Laguna, the tram has carried 11 million passengers in 11 months and has proved to be a clean and efficient service at a very low cost to users. Recent figures show that 25 % of people coming into Santa Cruz, now use the tram. Work has just started on a second line from Tincer to La Cuesta, once in operation, it will mean that 65 % of people in Santa Cruz will be no more than 500 metres away from a tram stop.

Future plans would see four lines criss crossing the city and outlying areas. A recent addition to the service has seen Wi Fi access installed on all carriages, a useful bonus for students travelling to and from La Laguna University. Taxi drivers may not be quite as keen on the new kid in town, but as far as everyone else is concerned, the tram is just the ticket.

The waiting is over and the Aguaviva festival of the seas, is back, bigger and bolder than ever. The big music concerts will grab all the headlines, but there are a lot of other events going on all through June to educate, and promote awareness of the problems facing the sea, particularly, the Atlantic that laps around the shores of the Canary Islands.

One change this year is the re-location of the information stands from various environmental groups, from the Los Cristianos church plaza, down to Las Vistas beach in a big hanger type tent. As well as being more appropriate to be in sight of the ocean, the large hanger attracts the curious, who will then hopefully learn more about the message behind Aguaviva.

Just to help those who don’t make it down to the stands, here are some of the groups involved, and contact points for more information.

Fundacion Neotropico is a project to help save sea turtles, and returned those that have been treated for illness and damage, to the ocean. Many become entangled in nets and rubbish or covered in oil, and need help to recover. Several turtles will be released into the sea during Aguaviva at public gatherings. www.neotropico.org

Seo Birdlife is a La Laguna based group dedicated to protecting all birds, especially rare species in Spain. You will find lots of information on their website to help you identify the many varied species that live or pass through the Canary islands. www.seo.org

Ben Magec is a Canarian environmental pressure group, that campaigns and raises awareness of issues facing these islands. Always willing to speak out, they have done great service to many causes across the islands. www.benmagec.org

World Wildlife is one of the biggest world wide organisations, with years of dedication to their name. They are keen to highlight the plight of species on the brink of extinction and have the credibility to make sure that people listen. www.worldwildlife.org

As well as the stands inside the hanger, there is a giant screen outside showing footage of the oceans and some of the problems they face. The white metal blocks may make you scratch your head, but they are made of the metal objects found along the local beaches in a series of clean ups over the last few weeks. They have been crushed down and painted white for artistic effect, but if you look closely, you can make out parts of cars, ovens, fridges etc, people seem all too willing to just dump anything anywhere.

It’s not a new problem to German born Wolfgang, scientific advisor and project holder for MARE, Mid Atlantic Renewable Energy, but after over 30 years of people laughing at his predictions of impending doom, the current upward spiral of oil prices has focused self centred minds on other ways to fuel the planet. Gradually becoming a Tenerife resident from 1995, Wolfgang has turned his thoughts to the particular problems of the Canary Islands and the unique chance they have to respond using the advantages of their Atlantic setting.

With a father involved in the building of nuclear power plants, breakfast discussions were heated and knowledgeable in the Ehrlich household but Wolfgang’s concerns were pushed to the background after becoming a Bachelor of Science in Physics and moving into various business concerns including I.T. Matters came to a head when Wolfgang was trying to build a massive film stage project in Adeje in 2004. “We needed large amounts of energy to power the project, and the best anyone could suggest was to use 10 diesel generators, this went against all of my instincts and seemed the least eco friendly thing imaginable, so I became involved with MARE.”

The Gran Canaria sized platform is an extreme and utopian solution, but for a start, maybe a platform to power just one island or a series of islands like the Canaries or Cape Verde would be easily obtainable. “The system would use Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) which can be fed ashore down extremely efficient high voltage cables that hardly lose any power in transit, over any distance, at a cost of just 5 to 7 cents per kilowatt. A test platform could be running in 3 years and would be modular, so extra capacity could be added in stages.” If all this sounds a logistical nightmare, Wolfgang points out that “in terms of a channel tunnel or a space station, the technology is a lot easier to assemble, and there are already major solar power projects up and running such as Kramer Junction (see pic) in California.”

La Transicion is a forum that has been set up to co-ordinate ideas like MARE and other forms of alternative power, in an effort to pool resources and ideas together, and is another area that Wolfgang is involved in. Another project that could be adapted to the Canary Islands is the growth of sea floor algae for bio fuel. Warnings have been sounded over using traditional food crops to make bio fuel but Wolfgang stresses that this algae grows freely at a greatly accelerated rate compared to field crops and would work well.

Figures from leading scientists in fuel studies are alarming, they suggest that oil reserves are much lower than we care to believe, producing countries are depleting their stocks on home consumption, let alone supplying the World market, and oil production has peaked and is fast running out. This is not very palatable news for politicians to serve up to the electorate, so many are still in denial and it may be the cold financial realities of oil costs that finally force action to seek alternatives.

In the meantime MARE and La Transicion will keep pushing in the hope that choices can be made quickly to avert the unthinkable and save us from sliding into a new dark age.

The 41.3 million euro project had 8 applicants, but that has been cut down to 6 worthy business’s that will tackle different substances. Renecan S.L will specialise in recycling up to 10,000 tons a year of old tyres, Ewaste Canarias S.L will re-use up 40,000 tons of electrical products annually, Enercocan will bring new life to around 30,000 tons of plastic, Biocardel S.L will adopt a similar policy to renew 12,000 tons of vegetable oil, Desgauces Tenerife S.A will take on up to 70,000 tons of steel a year and Urbaser S.A will re-use 30,000 tons of wood.

The estate will create 67 direct jobs initially, and the companies will have a low cost 25 year lease, that can then be reviewed to ensure that they are hitting their promised targets. It’s an exciting and ambitious project and will be watched closely with a view to expanding it to other sites, if successful.

“Serious cyclists really love climbing” so says Dr Leslie Brown with a grin of sheer enthusiasm, and he should know. Born in Sydney, Australia, he has always had a passion for bikes, and when he moved to Tenerife 3 years ago, he decided to develop that passion into a business and www.tenerife-training.net was born.

Tenerife has always been popular with sporting and serious cyclists, already this year several Olympic hopefuls have used the mountainous terrain to sharpen themselves up, and in the past, even the American 7 times Tour De France winner, Lance Armstrong has trained here. Leslie shares the attraction “where else can you do climbs of 2,300 metres and then drop down to the coast” Mind you he should know his surfaces, his doctorate was earned in material science, specialising in Opals.

Even for keen amateurs, the modern road or mountain bike doesn’t come cheap, your looking at 1,000 euros minimum, maybe thats why they often like to take their own bike away with them for a cycling holiday, and that’s where the problems begin. “You have to book your bike on board the plane as sporting equipment and buy a special case to protect it, and even then the excess baggage charge can be as high as 80 euros each way.”

But Leslie has more global reasons against bringing bikes over. “The heavier load a plane carries, the more CO2 it produces. Working on a weight of 15 kg for the bike on a typical return journey between the UK and Tenerife (LGW to TFS is 5,800 km) you will add on 100 kg to 200 kg in CO2 emissions. In terms of greenhouse gas, 100 kg of CO2 occupies 50,930 litres at standard atmospheric pressure.”

Thats a pretty strong argument for leaving the trusty steed at home and hiring from www.tenerife-training.net . All they need them to do is bring their pedals, helmet and shoes, and Leslie will fix them up with the right bike for their needs. Based up in the La Orotava hills, Leslie gets plenty of cycling practice himself, he favours a Czech made mountain bike with hydraulic disc brakes, and a light weight aluminium frame.

Hopefully as the word spreads, Leslie can help others to enjoy a clean and environmentally friendly past time which is perfectly suited to the wonderful scenery and nature of Tenerife. “It’s a niche market but there is a demand out there and it’s a great way to stay fit and look after the planet.” And with that, he rode off steadily and purposefully into the rising pine forests of La Orotava.

Sustainable energy makes good business sense, if you have any doubts, just look to the east. Energia Verde De Macronesia (EVM) is a joint Canarian and Japanese venture that is putting 100 million euros into building 2 large solar energy plants in Arico, on the east coast of Tenerife.

There are already wind turbines in the area, just up the road from ITER, the renewable energy project, but theses new plants are a major step forward in size and capacity. One plant will be able to produce 9 megawatts of power and the other 10 megawatts. that is enough to power 7,000 homes and would save 7,200 tons of CO2 per year, compared to a conventional power source. The project will also create 300 jobs, on site and in service spin offs.

The potential solar power of Tenerife is unlimited, and with major investors now willing to put cash where their concerns are, signs are hopeful for the future.