The president of the Port Authority of Las Palmas, Beatriz Calzada, welcomed her with the pulse of loyalty. Under the glass dome of ‘Deep Sea’, at the Port of Las Palmas, where the ocean becomes a window and silence turns into prayer, the Queen Doña Sofía received the embrace of the Canary Islands this Thursday. In the heart of the Poem of the Sea, this temple of life that is the pride of Las Palmas, the emeritus sovereign was crowned with the Gorilla Award. This is not just another award in the jewelry box of an exemplary life; it is a recognition of a higher sensitivity, of a decades-long trajectory where the protection of wounded ecosystems has been, for her, a state mission and a requirement of the soul. Doña Sofía, flanked by Fernando Clavijo and that captain of the company, Wolfgang Kiessling, presided over a ceremony filled with authority and affection. Following the veil of sadness for the loss of her sister, Princess Irene — whose memory hovered over the room like a Hellenic breeze — the Queen has returned to the front lines of commitment. And she has done so surrounded by science and faith, with the bishops of the two Canary dioceses and the top political figures of the islands paying homage to someone who has known how to place the environmental drama at the center of public debate. The rhetoric of the afternoon, vibrant and incisive, unraveled the milestones of a life devoted to the love for created beings. Panda bears from China, the donkeys from Zarzuela, and that pet cemetery where the Queen deposits her most intimate memories were recalled. But Doña Sofía’s gaze is set on the future. This was confirmed by Christoph Kiessling when announcing the new project that, under the auspices of the Queen Sofía Foundation, will listen to the heartbeat of the Strait of Gibraltar through acoustic sensors, seeking scientific truth to protect species from the voracity of these times. This Thursday, in short, is the prelude to a historic Friday where the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria will award her an honorary doctorate. But before the gown and mortarboard, it was the silver plaque and the glass of the aquarium that bore witness to her passage. Doña Sofía, a global reference and beacon of hope for biodiversity, leaves in the Islands the mark of a Queen who not only reigns over men but also guards, with an almost religious tenderness, the right to life of every creature that inhabits this wounded planet. Canarias, now more than ever, is the safe haven of her environmental wisdom.
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