SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, June 13. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Ministry of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands has denounced an act of vandalism that has led to the destruction of more than fifty specimens of the elder lard (Adenocarpus ombriosus), an endemic species in danger of extinction, in the surroundings of Pico de Malpaso (El Hierro).
These specimens were the result of a repopulation work carried out by the regional government, in collaboration with the former State Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment in this area.
The specimens of lambskin, an endemic species of El Hierro whose worldwide distribution is restricted to four small enclaves on the island of the meridian, were damaged by the passage of animals into the enclosure, which caused the destruction of trunks, branches and specimens by complete, both juveniles and adults. A few meters from the fence, the presence of a herd of goats was found, whose origin is being investigated by the Civil Guard and Environment Agents who are investigating the event.
The elbow tree is a shrub that can exceed two meters in height with clusters of yellow flowers and legume fruits, of which there are less than a thousand copies left on the entire planet.
The same day, as part of a visit by technicians from the Government of the Canary Islands and the public company Management and Territorial and Environmental Planning (Gesplan), the intentional breaking of the perimeter fence was also verified by means of machinery to facilitate the passage of the animals inside.
The head of the Autonomous Department, José Antonio Valbuena, stressed that “the Law on Natural Heritage and Biodiversity considers this type of infraction to be serious and carries fines of between 3,001 and 200,000 euros, since it affects the habitat and the specimens of a species cataloged as in danger of extinction in the Spanish Catalog of Endangered Species and in the Canarian Catalog of Protected Species”.
In 2014, the Government of the Canary Islands, in collaboration with the State Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment, within the framework of the project “Actions in kind with Recovery Plans approved or drawn up by the CEAC (E, S and V) or priorities for Europa y Red Natura 2000”, financed with European FEDER funds (2011-2014), in order to improve the state of conservation of this Canarian endemism, planted a total of 34 specimens in the Malpaso area, which have been monitored and maintenance by the General Directorate for the Fight against Climate Change for 8 years.
“The 2021 census revealed a favorable evolution of this nucleus where a total of 88 specimens had already been registered, between adults and juveniles, all of them within the Special Border Conservation Zone,” the councilor highlighted.
