RURAL GROUP, 26th of April, 2011

DAILY REPORT (26.04.2011)

Today we have visited the midlands of the South of Gran Canaria. The landscape of the hinterlands is entirely different from the coast area and also from the Northern rural areas of Tenerife. The southern region of the island receives less precipitation which can be seen in the vegetation. Pinus canariensis are much more disperse due to the lack of water. Afterwards we visited a typical rural village called Tunte. We could see how people adapted to the local conditions. Fields are located on landslide slopes where fertile soils can be found. Because of unequal annual rain distribution agriculture is based on irrigation system by using water stored in reservoirs. Agriculture is composed of vegetable, mango, avocado or citrus production that is transported and sold in Las Palmas. In addition to agriculture, in the 90’s the village has begun to develop sustainable rural tourism with the financial aid of the European Union program named LEADER.

In order to protect both the local traditions and natural resources, they have established several natural parks; Nublo rural park, Tamadaba natural park and Las Cumbres protected landscape. Since 2005, the whole municipality of Artenara was converted to World biosphere reserve.

One of the most important agriculture areas is located in the NW part of the Island. The landscape is dominated by greenhouses in which they grow bananas, mangos and tomatoes.

ECONOMY GROUP 26TH APRIL

In the village called Tunte situated at mid-altitude in the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana a new sustainable type of tourism, so called rural tourism, as emerged with the main idea of multi-functionality. There have been using a large, reconstructed, old building. It represents a contrast to the mass tourism developed and still developing at the south coastal area.

There have been planning a new energy project, called “the hydroelectric leap" between the dams Chira and Soria in which they would use wind energy for pumping the desalinized water to the dams, where it would be transformed to hydro-energy. With this project they will try to achieve energy self-sufficiency for the island. The project does not have all the support because of the questions of the infrastructure expanses, due to the distance and the change in the altitude between the two dams.

ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP, 26th April 2011

Barranco de Fataga / Tejera / Lake Chira

Along the “Barranco de Fataga” a transition zone between coast and mid-altitudes can be found. Both islands (Tenerife and Gran Canaria) have the same geological origin, however they can be found on a different stage of the timeline. Tenerife is now there where G.C. was about 5 million years ago. Gran Canarias landforms can be explained by a three stage model. Starting at 40 Million years before present the formation of the island took place. The first big explosive eruption happened 8 million years ago followed by a calm period in the next 3 million years (different types of erosion were able to shape the landscape). At the end of this period the 2^nd volcano erupted and left behind a landscape full of calderas and much lower in altitude than e.g. Tenerife. Due to the different chemical composition of the rocks differential erosion configured the landforms. Coming into altitudes of about 1.500 meters vast surfaces are covered by the “Pinus Canariensis” (predominantly of young age and very dispersed as they are recovering from former deforestation).