“A tree is life,” emphasizes Jaime Coello Bravo, a master in Environmental Policy and Management and spokesperson for the Telesforo Bravo Foundation. In Canary Islands, urban trees are continuously lost for reasons ranging from safety to urbanization, leaving cities exposed to extreme temperatures and decreasing their quality of life. Landscape architect Flora Pescador, professor of Urban Planning and Land Management at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), adds that the lack of trees increases heat islands and harms the well-being of citizens, urging for more integration of green spaces in urban areas.
Coello Bravo advocates for “advancing in the awareness that a tree is life”. He asserts that in any conflict situation “nature always loses” and “we have seen in García Sanabria park how, after a branch of a red eucalyptus fell, they cut down the entire specimen, I do not doubt that there may be weighty reasons related to safety, but unfortunately that is always the case.
This loss of the budget occurs for the most varied reasons. “There are emblematic cases such as the one that occurred in San Sebastián de La Gomera, where the city council took on the flame trees arguing that they are not native, without foreseeing a replacement and ending their protective effects, shade, and temperature decrease.” It also happens with neighbours “who complain that they are losing their view, and when the dog dies, the barking stops,” under the perception that trees do not vote.
Urban Desert
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Open areas due to neglect or omission in the case of Santa Cruz de Tenerife create “tremendous spaces, such as the cruise terminal towards the auditorium,” which he describes as an “urban desert” and “where you could fry an egg on days of extreme radiation,” and he denounces urban projects that advocate for open spaces as in the old square of Cristo de La Laguna, “which had trees,” or the Lake Martiánez promenade in Puerto de la Cruz.
Trees on Mesa y López street in the capital of Gran Canaria. / Juan Castro
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The same happens in places like the huge coastal promenade of the seafront avenue of the capital of Gran Canaria, to which the disputable construction started developing from 1965 of a gigantic asphalt artery bordering the sea after gaining ground, the folly of not having a single tree along its more than eight-kilometre pedestrian route between Las Alcaravaneras and the San Cristóbal neighbourhood is added.
In addition, in its lane separation median for traffic, it was decided to link it with an endless chain of purely ornamental Washington palm trees that, according to Coello, “do not provide any shade and are often chosen for business purposes by companies”.
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These large strips of overheated asphalt due to solar exposure not only significantly increase the city’s temperature because they act as a perfect heater for air that moves from sea to land, but according to a study published in the journal Science Advances, they also release harmful secondary organic aerosols into the atmosphere at high temperatures originating from the asphalt itself.
In this regard, it should be noted that when the ambient temperature exceeds 30 degrees Celsius, the pavement, depending on its composition, can ‘boil’ up to 70 degrees Celsius, which, along with the concrete, which rises up to 60 degrees under the same conditions, act as precursors to the so-called heat islands.
Turning away from nature
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Landscape architect Flora Pescador, professor of Urban Planning and Land Management, asserts that it is imperative to eliminate these heat islands because in the main cities of the Canary Islands “we live with our backs to nature” with completely waterproof urban fabrics where the temperature artificially rises.
Contrary to the successful speeches by the city councils themselves that qualify their tree masses as ‘urban forests’ to publicize their plantations and forest park, Pescador highlights a disconnection in the islands towards trees “which is a cultural trait that refers to those moments when we did not have water, a very long time ago, but now we could have much greener cities than we do because we are pioneers in desalination.
Water purification is a significant matter.
Citizen disaffection
Evidence of this citizen indifference is that there are practically no protests, or they are merely symbolic, when large trees, 20 to 30 years old, are excessively pruned and “no protests arise,” as is the case with the imposing Indian laurels on Alameda de Colón in the capital of Gran Canaria, in a serious state of deterioration, nor with the transplanted or felled specimens that are or were on the route of the future Metroguagua.
Illustration of urban trees. / Adae Santana
It also acknowledges that the territory is limited and has a high population density, “with little soil” suitable for more trees, “but a greater green dimension could be given to the La Ballena ravine, as was done in the Juan Pablo II Park, which is a delight to see, or in perimeter areas like San José del Álamo, but undoubtedly Las Palmas de Gran Canaria lacks a large park on a much larger scale, and the Canary cities are not prepared for such dimensions.”
Lack of green spaces
This lack of preparedness is not only due to limited territory but also to the development trajectory it has experienced. “Since the tourism boom in the 1960s, cities have grown in population, but not in the same proportion as their green spaces. Mandatory land transfers were required for construction, but no significant strategic reserves were made, except in peri-urban areas, which I hope will one day become those large parks.”
He emphasizes that “climate refuges could be created to cover the vegetation deficit, as it is necessary to find a formula to introduce more greenery. It used to be much more complicated, but today there are maintenance formulas that offer coexistence with nature: we are part of this world and we have to understand that.”
The tree as an object
It is in this lack of understanding, in the entrenched concept of the tree as a mere decorative object to be put up and taken down, where Domingo Afonso, an agronomist and spokesperson for the platform that promotes, with the support of 18,000 signatures, a Urban Tree Law, whose processing was unanimously approved by the Canary Islands Parliament in 2022, a text that calls for the protection of all urban trees in the archipelago, to carry out an inventory, prohibit their uprooting, aggressive pruning, and felling, and to develop a tree plan in municipalities, plans that none of the 88 localities in the Canary Islands have, as he claims.
Palm trees on the Avenida Marítima in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. / La Provincia
Afonso, following Pescador’s statement, asserts that trees in the Canary Islands are reduced to the category of “furniture”. This implies widespread damage. “In Las Palmas, hundreds of trees were affected along the entire Metroguagua route; in Santa Cruz, the same, most of them sick due to poor care; and in La Laguna, centenary specimens were cut down to widen the sidewalk on Camino Largo.”
Aggressive pruning
The engineer adds to this list “aggressive felling, when no more than a third of a tree branch can be cut, as published in the BOC,” all in an Autonomous Community “where there is no municipal ordinance regulating them.”
An ordinance that, if it existed, according to a forestry engineer, would have to be adapted to the same work carried out in the forest areas of the archipelago.
“Arboriculture used in parks and gardens,” he explains, “is derived from hortofruticulture, which is what prunes the apple or pear tree so that the farmer can harvest the fruit and opens the canopy for more flowers and increased production, and these techniques cannot be applied in any way to an Indian laurel in any square, which we see shaved, in a confined space, where it has not been able to develop its full potential, and therefore, it is mutilated.”
This “is widespread. InMoya has just undergone a pruning of the trees in front of its cultural centre, but this is by no means the only case – this happens in all municipalities. That is why it is necessary to bring forestry to the villages and cities because it focuses on coverage, the percentage of shaded areas, rather than the number of trees, which is irrelevant when you plant a row of sticks, as opposed to a large specimen with a broad canopy.
The catalog of errors includes tree pits of “ridiculous dimensions, in relation to the future size of the specimen”, the lack of a substrate in suitable conditions that allow for sustenance, nourishment and oxygenation, and planting on cement bases with little to no coverage of fertile soil.
It also affects “negligence in watering, fertilizing, pest and disease control,” or in the execution of sewer or wiring works, where a few workers can destroy entire rows with cement spills or leaching.”.
Illustration of trees in the city. / Adae Santana
Therefore, it warns that it is “urgent to have a manual of best practices for the Canary Islands differentiated by regions, because planting in Vilaflor, in Telde or in Puerto del Rosario is not the same: everything is already invented in urban forestry, but we have not managed to get the authorities to apply it.” With some exceptions, but far from here.”
Quality over quantity
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Borja Rodríguez serves as the councillor for City Model, Urban Planning and Environment of the European Green Capital 2012, and was awarded as Global Green City in 2019: Vitoria-Gasteiz, with over 26 square meters of park per inhabitant. Its wooded area makes it the provincial capital with the highest green area index per capita in Spain, exceeding the recommendations of the World Health Organization with over 112,000 trees of 150 different species for a population of 259,000 people.
Rodríguez states that, once this tree treasure has been achieved, since 2021 they have implemented new measures focused on taking it a step further, a turn that captures the opinion of top experts.
“We believe,” he explains, “that we should not focus so much on the number of trees we plant or replace, but on their quality. We want Vitoria-Gasteiz to have large trees that can thrive, provide environmental benefits and shade, promote biodiversity, be more resistant to pests, and adapt to the conditions we must anticipate due to climate change”.
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“An approach,” in essence, “that seeks excellence, with remarkable tree-lined avenues, where the benefits are tangible and effective. Therefore, it is essential to prepare the ground well, plant more suitable species for the environment in which they will be planted and take care of maintenance,” because, as he specifies, “planting trees lowers the temperature on the streets, enriches biodiversity in urban areas, enhances their areas to make them more pleasant and enhances the health of the people”. In fact, Vitoria-Gasteiz ranks in the top 10 of cities with the highest life expectancy across the country.
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