UNESCO has sounded the alarm over how Madrid is managing its most iconic park. A scathing report by ICOMOS, UNESCO’s advisory body, questions the El Retiro Master Plan and compels the City Council to thoroughly revise it if it wishes to retain, without a hitch, the World Heritage status it has shared with the Paseo del Prado since 2021. At the center of the criticism are mass tourism, insufficient protection of monuments, ponds, and historic buildings, and the lack of public participation in decisions regarding the future of the capital’s largest green space.
The report, dated November and now made public, analyzes the Master Plan presented by the City Council for the next ten years—an essential roadmap, as any management strategy must have UNESCO’s approval given that it is a World Heritage site. The experts identify “significant shortcomings” and consider the document “incomplete”: it does not clearly define how the three administrations involved in the park (City Council, Regional Government, and State) will coordinate, addresses the conservation of buildings, ponds, and monuments in a “rather marginal” manner, and does not specify clear criteria for intervening in them.
ICOMOS recommends creating a specific steering committee for El Retiro, with clear responsibilities and real decision-making authority, that brings together the various administrative bodies and establishes a unified strategy. It also requests that any action affecting the outstanding universal value of the Landscape of Light be notified to the World Heritage Centre, a requirement that the plan does not specify with sufficient precision.
Mass tourism: the major blind spot
The most sensitive issue concerns tourism. El Retiro receives more than 18 million visitors a year, with peaks of up to 55,000 people a day and even 160,000 on very busy days—a pressure that the City Council itself acknowledges as a problem but which its plan does not address in concrete terms. The report criticizes the document for “failing to provide sufficient guidance” on managing visitor flows or ensuring harmonious coexistence among tourists, regular pedestrians, cyclists, and scooter users in the park’s most congested areas.
UNESCO warns that several areas of El Retiro are already “overcrowded” and cautions that, without a clear strategy to control visitor numbers, the park faces progressive deterioration of its infrastructure, gardens, and ecosystem. The risk is significant, as if tourist pressure compromises the values that justified its inclusion on the World Heritage List, the Landscape of Light could end up on the “blacklist” of endangered sites—a scenario no one in Madrid wants to imagine.
Heritage, controversial restorations, and wildlife
The report also focuses on how the built heritage within the park is being cared for. ICOMOS considers that Madrid’s plan “treats only marginally” the conservation of historic buildings, sculptures, fountains, and ponds, without detailing actions or priorities to ensure their long-term preservation. It questions some recent restorations, described as “highly problematic,” and calls for aligning intervention criteria with international heritage conservation standards.
In addition, there are calls to pay greater attention to the protection of the vegetation and wildlife inhabiting El Retiro, two key elements of its environmental and scenic value. Suggested measures include limiting the expansion of terraces attached to food and beverage kiosks, better regulating the use of paths and meadows, and establishing clear boundaries to prevent wear and tear on particularly sensitive areas.
Neighbors sidelined
Another major criticism from UNESCO concerns the way the Master Plan was developed. The document notes that public participation has been “limited” and recommends involving the local community “from the earliest stages of the process,” not just through post-facto comments. Associations such as Amigos del Buen Retiro have long denounced this lack of genuine dialogue, and now see their criticisms backed by the international report.
For UNESCO, the management of a park like this cannot be designed solely from city hall offices: it requires the perspective of residents, heritage experts, environmental groups, and cultural stakeholders who experience it on a daily basis. This failure to listen, they emphasize, is evident in a plan that lacks specificity regarding the park’s everyday problems, ranging from overcrowded paths to the coexistence of very different uses of the space.
The City Council’s Response
Following the release of the criticism, the City Council has announced that it will adapt the Master Plan to UNESCO’s requirements and submit a revised version for evaluation. The department in charge emphasizes that this is the first comprehensive plan in history for El Retiro and notes that in recent years more than 4.5 million euros have been invested in the restoration of sculptures, monuments, and fountains throughout the Paisaje de la Luz complex.
The opposition, however, calls it a “historic slap on the wrist” and criticizes the fact that the document was initially approved in 2025—behind schedule relative to commitments—only to then stall for over a year without final approval. Opposition leaders such as Rita Maestre have described UNESCO’s conclusions as “devastating” and are calling for a “thorough overhaul” of the plan, not just cosmetic changes.
Behind this clash between UNESCO and the City Council lies a fundamental question: how does one manage a large historic park in the center of a tourist capital that continues to break visitor records? El Retiro is, at the same time, a neighborhood park for thousands of Madrileños, a space for walking and sports, a cultural icon, and a global tourist attraction, and each of these roles pulls in a different direction when it comes to regulating capacity, activities, and land use.