Anaga to become Unesco Biosphere Reserve

[Janet]

Tenerife already has internationally recognized locations, whether the Teide National Park, a World Heritage Site, or La Laguna, a Unesco World Cultural and Heritage Site, and it will soon have another. The proposal for the Anaga Rural Park to become a new Biosphere Reserve has been backed by the Spanish committee for Unesco's Man and Biosphere Programme, an intergovernmental scientific project which aims to establish a scientific base to improve global human and environment relations.

Anaga is already one of Tenerife's "Essentials" (see HERE), occupying much of the mountainous massif of north-east Tenerife. It extends to some 14,419 hectares, so is a substantial part of the Island, and one of exceptional beauty. Its natural habitats include some of the best Canarian ecosystems, most notably the laurel forests and juniper woodlands. In this respect, it's on a par with the tertiary era Garajonay forest of La Gomera, the whole of which is itself a Unesco Biosphere Reserve - as are La Palma, El Hierro, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, as well as around a third of Gran Canaria. Anaga clearly well deserves inclusion in this list, and it now just remains for the proposal to be presented to Unesco's International Coordination Council in Paris, which meets next Spring. JA

[Myrtle Hogan-Lance]