The CSIC supports the document that limits the use of Teide. This follows from the words of the delegate of the Higher Council for Scientific Research in the Canary Islands, Manuel Nogales, stated in a statement on Monday that a governing plan for the use and management of the National Park “more restrictive than the current one” is necessary.
Manuel Nogales, a researcher at the Institute of Natural Products and Agrobiology (IPNA), explained that the draft of the new use and management plan is a “adequate starting document to combat the challenges that arise” currently for the conservation of the National Park of the Mount Teide.
You have indicated that the purpose of this new document is to renew and adapt the plan to current conservation conditionswhich is the main and ultimate goal of any national park.
Manuel Nogales makes an account of what has happened in recent years, and thus has pointed out that in this decade, the number of visitors to the Teide National Park has been gradually increasing until reaching in 2018, before the pandemic of the covid-19more than 4 million visitors concentrated in an area of only about 190 square kilometers.
It is the first national park constituted as such in Canary Islands (January 22, 1954) and in 2007 it received World Heritage status from UNESCO, which recognizes it as one of the richest and most diverse places in the world.
In addition, in 1989, the Council of Europe awarded the national park the European Diploma in its highest category, still in force today, and added that these considerations show the eseer singularity of this protected space and its natural values in a global context.
Hence, the new Master Plan for Use and Management is particularly relevant within the network of natural spaces of the Spanish state, Manuel Nogales has underlined.
According to the CSIC delegate in the Canary Islands, adding to this urgency is the fact that currently Teide has serious problemsfrom the point of view of the conservation of its biota, related to the presence of two introduced herbivores: the mouflon and the rabbit.
He explained that both animals cause significant damage to flora and vegetation so exclusive to the Teide National Park, which is home to 12 endemic species.
Manuel Nogales has pointed out that another drawback for conservation work is the honey exploitation (installation of hives), of which 2,700 have been authorized annually in the last decade, and whose bees displace native pollinators, many of them also endemic.
Added to the above is the effect of climate changeespecially pernicious in high mountain environments, he recalled.
These are “just a few” of the main threats to which the Teide National Park is exposedbut they show the necessary implementation of a new more restrictive regulation in terms of its conservation.
This is what is sought to be achieved with this new draft of the PRUG, which, in his opinion, is an adequate starting document to combat the challenges that currently arise for the conservation of the Teide National Park, he concluded.
