Teide

Teide National Park occupies the highest part of the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain). Declared in 1954 as Mount Teide National Park, it is the largest and oldest national park of the Canary Islands. In 1981 the park was upgraded and a special legal regime was implemented. In 1989, the Council of Europe awarded the European Diploma National Park at its highest level. This recognition to the management and conservation has been renewed in 1994, 1999 and 2004. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of its transformation into a national park in 2002 the process began on the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

On June 28 2007, after five years of work and effort, UNESCO decided to declare the Teide National Park a World Heritage Convention in the UNESCO World Heritage meeting in Christchurch, New Zealand. This region is the volcano Teide and with its 3718 meters high peak, is the highest peak in the Canary Islands and of any land in the Atlantic Ocean. It is also the third highest volcano in the world, only surpassed by the Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

It was at the Center for Atmospheric Izana where there was the most sunshine in 2007 in Spain, and was also the place where the average temperature was lowest, 10.2 degrees on average throughout the year (according to of data available to the National Institute of Statistics, collected in its statistical yearbook).

After several revisions and expansions, it has a surface area of 18,990 hectares.

There are numerous casts of different eruptions along the mountains and volcanoes scattered throughout the park and these form a characteristic landscape. Guajara is at the top of the Llano Ucanca, the Siete Canadas, La Fortaleza, the Roques de Garcia and Pico Viejo (or Chahorra) are very important and form the characteristic landscape of the park.

Flora has also been studied by scientists such as Alexander von Humboldt and Eric R. Sventenius.

The National Park receives 3.5 million visitors annually and in the accommodation section of the Parador de Turismo Las Canadas del Teide. No volcanic landscape of the world gets more visits except Mount Fuji in Japan.

History
El Llano de Ucanca and the Teide in the background.

Teide National Park has large historical value. It has an important spiritual meaning for the Guanches who came to be an essential resource for the sustenance and survival of these people at certain times of the year, because in the summer period there was a large concentration of livestock and grazing in this area.

In the park there are important archaeological sites which have been discovered. The Guanches with the name “Echeyde” whose meaning was “Guayota abode of the Evil One.” According to legend, they kidnapped the Guayota Sun god, the Guanches Magec, and shut him up inside the volcano on the island and it was plunged into total darkness. At that time the Guanches relied on Acham their supreme god of heaven, and begged his help. Acham beat Guayota and the achievement ended the captivity of the Sun and sealed the mouth of Echeyde. This story seems to coincide with the last major eruptive episode of the Teide.

In 1492, just as Christopher Columbus Columbus was ready to conquer the New World there was the Teide eruption.  In 1798, the last major eruption happened called Noses Teide in which 12 million cubic meters of lava was discharged during three months from Pico Viejo.

Biodiversity

In the Teide National Park there is a total of 168 plants. Of these, 58 are considered endemic Canarian plants. At present, according to the National Catalog of threatened species, three plant species are endangered and another twelve are in a vulnerable position. For many endemic species, the walls and cavities of rocks that make up the Canadas represent a true haven for its conservation.

Highlights include tajines rojo (Echium wildpretii), the Las Canadas jara (Cistus osbeckifolius), rose from the Guanche (Bencomia extipulata) which is in a serious condition because the population does not exceed 50 individuals, and low Helianthemum Juliao and a plant that grows very fragile and delicate, the Teide Violet (Viola cheiranthyfolia). This is not only one of the few plants that inhabit the high mountains, but it is also within the short group of plants that bloom at higher elevations throughout the national territory.

In order to answer the many threats that this flora is subject to (human influence, introduced species), there have been adopted plans that seek to shed light on the future of this sensitive ecosystem. These plans attempt to coordinate the development of different activities that can be done to try to recover populations of these species such as seed mass in the nursery, seed collection, structure analysis, refunds of germination in laboratory experiments and dynamic population genetics.

As part of the wildlife species that inhabit the national park on a temporary or permanent basis throughout the year, include the hoopoe, the shrike real Pipit the road, the boy owl, the canary, the Kestrel, rabbits, crows, cabecinegra the warbler, tomillera warbler, sparrow hawks, the common herrerillo the smut lizard, the washer cascadena, blackbirds, bednets, Canary big-eared bat, the wild pigeon, partridge Moruna the perenquen of DeLand, the robin, the blue chaffinch , mice, pigeons and the swift unicolor.