The Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council, through the Sustainable Santa Cruz Foundation, is carrying out a project, together with the University of La Laguna and the Cepsa Foundation, to recover, rehabilitate and reforest the environment of the Las Mesas Park, located in the upper part of the city.
It is about 180 hectares of forest in which the irrigation network that was implemented in the 90s will be removed, which is in poor condition and even contains materials that harm the environment.
In addition, a study will be carried out to see which species must be removed and which must be repopulated, taking into account those that originally existed, which are mainly those of the thermophilic forest. “The most deforested vegetation floor in the Canary Islands”, according to the manager of Sustainable Santa Cruz, Pedro Millán.
An inventory of the natural and plant heritage that will be led by the patron of the Sustainable Santa Cruz Foundation and Canarias de Medio Ambiente award, Wolfredo Wildpret de la Torre, and the professor of the Department of Botany, Ecology and Plant Physiology of the University of La Laguna, Vitoria Eugenia Martín Osorio.
Professionals who are satisfied with this assignment, whose purpose is to achieve “the conservation of nature” and in which they assure that “many of the things that had been planted with good intention in the past will have to be removed, but that, with over time, it has been seen that they were not good decisions ”.
A “very important” project, in the words of the mayor of Santa Cruz, José Manuel Bermúdez, with which the Parque de Las Meses will become “an environment for the enjoyment of all and an example of protection of the natural environment”, which it requires the collaboration of “entities, professionals and volunteers”.
Undoubtedly, a plan that will help, with the reforestation of some 1,500 trees in this first phase, to offset the ecological footprint and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 40% by 2030. It will also have a participatory process, which It will open soon, so that citizens can decide what use to make of the Park, to finally present it to European Next Generation funds and try to obtain financing that would be around two million euros.
The recreational area of the park would be on the sidelines of this project, because its rehabilitation, which went out to tender in August this year for almost one million euros, is the responsibility of the Cabildo de Tenerife. Something with which the mayor of the city, José Manuel Bermúdez, claims to be “concerned about the deadlines and the level of completion of the work”, which, in his opinion, will not be executed during 2022. A work that, he assures Bermúdez, “we are not going to accept until it is well finished.”
Field tasks
Although yesterday, and thanks to the abundant rains of these days, the first tree was planted in the park, a peralillo, the truth is that around 30 students of the cycle of forest management and the natural environment, and of the cycle of agro-gardening of the IES El Sobradillo, have been working for months, together with the City Council’s environmental crews, and supervised by several forestry engineers, to clean up the area, which was impassable due to scrubland and invasive species, such as coniferous and eucalyptus cupresáceas, or the tuneras and piteras.
Likewise, a cleaning will be carried out in the area, especially in the area designated for parking lots, where the existence of garbage is visible.
