Influencers dug up protected sand dunes during treasure hunt gone wrong

Music festival organisers in Spain have been fined after a botched promotional stunt saw throngs of people damage the local landscape during a search for buried treasure.

A suitcase containing €1000 was buried in the sand at the Maspalomas Dunes in Gran Canaria, in an attempt to drum up interest for an upcoming music festival in the area.

In an Instagram video, organisers said: ‘We have been given €1,000 for the promotion of the event, and instead of burning it in TV commercials we are going to hide them around the island. The first person to find it gets to keep it.’

Screenshots and videos later showed dozens of influencers flooding onto the Maspalomas dunes, with the caption: ‘Let’s go for the 1,000 euros.’

Treasure hunters dug up the protected Maspalomas dunes in Gran Canaria (Picture: Instagram)

But the island’s tourist board later revealed the dunes are designated a special nature reserve with ‘incalculable ecological value’ to the local economy, and have launched an investigation into the event.

The dunes have been a protected area since 1994, and visitors are supposed to follow the directed routes when crossing them.

‘The ecosystem of this space, warns the government of the Canary Islands, is extremely fragile, strongly threatened by intense human activity in the area,’ Spanish newspaper El País reported.

Following the investigation, Raúl García Brink, the island’s minister of the environment, said: ‘There has been no impact on either the vegetation or the fauna and with the wind that there has been during this weekend, the landscape damage has been restored.’ 

The organisers were later fined €600 ($651.20) for their infraction.

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