Timanfaya continues to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its declaration as a National Park with a diverse program of activities that began in September 2024 and will continue until August 2025. Managed by the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Energy of the Government of the Canary Islands, the Lanzarote park has dedicated this month of January to the interpretation of natural heritage.
"We live in a unique place": an archipelago that has "very different" ecosystems and four national parks that are "the jewel in the crown" of the Canary Islands, explained this week Jacinto Leralta, geographer and interpreter guide of the Garajonay National Park, at the Interpretation Conference held this week.
In his talk Do we really know where we live? he warned that "the Canary Islands have a lot of protected space and not enough money to manage it." One of the consequences has been the almost complete disappearance of the thermophilic forest, which "is the most mistreated area".
Cristina Bernar is an interpreter guide of the Timanfaya National Park and a lover of its biodiversity. In her presentation, she helped to understand how "lichens are the beginning of life", paving the way for the establishment of other species. In Timanfaya, 71 species of these symbiosis of fungi, algae and bacteria that break up the rock and create soil have been cataloged.
The tabaiba is "a great example of resilience": it survives the lack of rain with "a bestial root system" that sometimes crosses the paths. "Many visitors are not aware that the plants are alive and step on them." A good part of the basal floor in the Canary Islands - between sea level and 600 meters - "has disappeared due to the construction of tourist complexes," lamented Bernar, who conveyed the importance of "loving the territory to care for and conserve it."
The 2,400 hectares of laurisilva that exist in La Gomera are the best representation of this "old forest", a relict forest whose good state of conservation has been possible "thanks to the declaration in 1981 of the Garajonay National Park", Leralta also explained.
The main problems facing this laurel, viñátigos and holly forest that 20 million years ago occupied the Mediterranean basin are "fires, desertification and feral livestock".
Ana León and Ana Ferraz, interpreter guides of the Caldera de Taburiente National Park, spoke about the extraordinary regeneration capacity of the Canary Island pine, whose bark "supports the 400ºC of a fire, causing the temperature inside the trunk to be 40ºC". Its needle-shaped leaves also make it a natural fog collector: "they provide water to the aquifer and are a refuge for biodiversity".
75% of the Palmera National Park is a pine forest that is not "poor in species" as was previously believed. An investigation started in 2005 has shown that the places where introduced herbivores do not reach are gardens with more than 40 plant species.
The main threats to the pine forest are "drought, which leaves the soils without raw material", the alterations caused by "tourist pressure" and the transformation of some land into cyclical monocultures "that are abandoned when they cease to be profitable", such as vineyards, proteas or avocado trees.
The biodiversity of the high Canary mountains, in the Teide National Park, "is a unique endemic heritage", adapted to a subalpine continental climate with winds of up to 200 kilometers per hour, 100 days of frost and 3,000 hours of strong annual sun. "We are going through a dry cycle that lasts 13 years, it is the largest since the drought of the 50s. We have a very big problem with water," Leralta reported.
The Interpretation Conference concluded with a round table on the Public use of the Canary Islands national parks in which the four participating interpreter guides took part.
