The Biosphere Reserve Office celebrated last Thursday a tribute to the figure of the camel and the camel herder of Lanzarote, framed in the celebration of the IV Camel Conference that took place last week in Uga, co-organized by the Cabildo and the City Council of Yaiza with the collaboration of the Government of the Canary Islands.
The protagonist of the event was Francisco Mesa, who at 24 years old is the youngest camel herder registered on the island "and therefore a symbol of the generational change of this sector that has a herd of about 500 camels, the vast majority of them located in Uga, and from which about 40 families on the island live directly and another 30 indirectly, mainly through the service offered on the Camel Route of the Fire Mountains", according to the Cabildo.
The Councilor of the Biosphere Reserve, Rafael Juan González, highlighted "the significant role that both the camel and the farmer of Lanzarote have played in shaping the unique landscape of the island, because as a result of their joint work for five centuries, until it was replaced by machines, are the sandpits, the terraces, the crops of the Jable or the landscape of La Geria".
For his part, the councilor responsible for the areas of the primary sector in the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Antonio Morales, expressed the commitment of the first Island Corporation to "contribute economically to carry out a project that values the potential of Uga as a place in Europe with the largest number of camel herds" and trusted in "a prompt approval of the new Island Planning Plan, which will cover the real demands of the primary sector in general and in particular all the families that live from the breeding and work of the camel".
In this context, the mayor of Yaiza, Óscar Noda, pointed out that "the recognition of the figure of the camel and the camel herder of Lanzarote is also a new recognition to the people of Uga, which houses in its little valley the most important camel herd in Europe with about 500 specimens, a herd on which the livelihood of at least forty families of the town depends with an activity linked to tourism that in some cases already has up to four generations".
"The conservation and growth of the breed leads to the possibility of diversifying the productivity of the herd, making profitable, for example, camel milk, desired not only for its healthy properties, but for being a raw material in other countries for the production of chocolates, ice cream, yogurts, cheese and also used in the beauty products industry", added the mayor, who was accompanied by the Councilor of the Primary Sector of Yaiza, Roque Herrera.
