Tenerife wants tourists to stop building 'stone towers'

Building stone towers on the beaches of Tenerife has become incredibly popular activity among tourists.

Visitors flock to areas such as Playa Jardin in Puerto de la Cruz to take photos of the towers as well as construct their own.

According to Lonely Planet and El Pais it's unclear how the trend got started, but it picked up pace after a meditation event called the Harmonic Convergence in the US in 1987, leading to others wanting to replicate the image around the world. Local conservationists would now like it to stop.

As reported in the The Local Local biologist Pedro Luis Sánchez has created an educational video where he explains that the stones "provide a home for living beings, such as plant organisms that are essential for the health of the soil and are needed for insects to thrive, they in turn provide food for reptiles who live under these rocks when we pile up the rocks we take away their home."

Efforts are currently underway to dismantle the rock towers that have been built and prevent more from being created.

In 2017, a Cornish tourist faced vandalism charges and jail for balancing piles of rocks on iconic British landmarks.

He was accused of "rubbing out history" by creating the statues.