RURAL GROUP, 24th April 2011

As we arrived on the island of Gran Canaria we visited first the Caldera of Bandama. On our way to the Caldera we could see that the main urban areas of the island are on the coast side while the lands used for agriculture are concentrated towards the center of the island. The urban landscape is expanding at the costs of the rural landscape.

From the top of the “Pico de la Bandama” we have seen the vineyards which were structured according to the French style unlike the vineyards in Tenerife. The latter are used for subsistence and are therefore smaller while the vineyards in Gran Canaria are bigger and intended for export.

ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP, 24th of April 2011

Caldera de Bandama, which is 200m deep and 1km wide, is the resulting landform of a recent volcanic eruption which happened about 2.000 years ago. At that time a pyroclastic storm might have destroyed first settlements of the Guanches in the south of the island. Right after the explosive eruption the magma chamber collapsed and the caldera was formed. Next to this caldera another cone preserved its original shape being the last active volcano on the island. The event that already happened in Gran Canaria can be seen as a probable scenario for Tenerife. This is supported by models based on the development of G.C. as it is the far more evolved island in this archipelago. Nowadays the Caldera de Bandama is a protected area (Natural Monument).

SOCIAL GROUP, 25th April 2011

Visit to Maspaloma’s tourist resort, sand dunes and Melonera’s coast.

Today we have seen much more about social geography than the day before. A human geography professor from the university of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has been guiding us through the tourist gradient resort of Maspalomas. For that, we have been taught the recent history of south Gran Canaria. It was not until the 30s when the owner, of the almost whole south of the island, the Conde de la Vega Grande, decided to explode agriculturally that territory. It was not till the early 60s when he realized it was better to shift, thus he tried to gain money with the incipient tourism, especially based on a characteristic landscape and on a specific offer, sun and sand. The first tourism settlements had many infrastructural and lack of capital problems. It was not therefore until the end of the decade when this area was developed as a tourist area, specially for Scandinavian company employees. With the 73s oil crisis the tourism developed went down, till the 80s, concretely when in 1986 Spain joined the European Union, bringing money both from the UE and the new tourists. That also attracted people to that place, first from the islands and the others one of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, and more recently from north Africa and Southamerica.

The municipality of San Bartolomé, where we are, had not any node near by the sea, so the urbanization process had not any foundations from which it could develop. Thus the urbanization process started from zero, and all new urban areas were used for tourism use. The main idea nowadays is consequently the spatial social structure, so that we have three clear urban areas. Playa del Inglés is the first area which was developed, being now a gradient tourist resort. At the other side of the sand dunes and the Maspaloma’s golf course we have Melonera’s coast, a new tourism resort developed since the 90s, full of four and five stars hotels. Furthermore, we have El Tablero, a neighbourhood born as a tourist industry and construction workers.

So today we have discussed where exactly we want to do our field work. It seems both interesting the case we have just described, and also Mogán municipality case, where we would be able to see the relation between an old town and the new tourist resort located down the beach. Tomorrow we will most likely visit Mogán in order to decide which option we will choose.

SOCIAL GROUP, 24th April 2011

Visit to Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Ferry to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Visit to Bandama’s volcanic caldera.

Today we have been visiting Tenerife’s capital, Santa Cruz. We went on a quick sightseeing, walking around the old town and old port. There it was where later on we took a ferry to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. We travelled to Bandama’s volcanic caldera, where we did not see any social processes at all. The most remarkable fact we saw it was the golf course just near by the amazing caldera. We were taught how the English people who were living in Las Palmas (most of them working on trade or commercial) moved to that part of the island, close to the capital of Gran Canaria but still far from the city. There they built their own houses, most of them easily recognisable due to the characteristic British architecture. There were that English citizens who built this golf course in the 19^th century, being therefore the oldest in Spain. Finally, it is also remarkable how the 75% of the population of the island is living there, so it is here where all infrastructure is concentred too. This is saying how different is Gran Canaria in spatial distribution terms compared to its sister Tenerife.

We have been discussing about the method from how we will approach our future goals. What we are sure now is we want to crumble social structures and where are them located.

Economy group 25th of April

Maspalomas nowadays is the second most touristic area in Spain and it has a capacity of 143209 beds (Consejeria de turismo de Canarias, 2007), which represents 70 % of the island's offer. The estimates of the number of tourists in this area is 2,5 millions, meanwhile for the whole island is 3,2 millions. However, Tenerife has more visitants.

The desertic south of Gran Canaria was unpopulated and cultivated for cereals and tomatoes until the 30s. They were providing water from the mountanious part. Then was started the planning for tourism development, from where the owner of the land, Conde de la Vega Grande, expected to get more profit.

To start with it they had to plan the needed infrastructure and future development. There are three diferent types of acommodation:

- apartaments (for enterprises, the highest percentage);

- the mixed (parcial private owners and rented apartaments);

- sold completly.

The bases for the tourist development and country's benefit were:

- the Strauss act (in the 70s: they were allowed to invest in the infrastructure of the countries in development);

- the oil crises (1973, 1979 - the construction slowed down).

With the entrance in the EU in 1986 they recevied founds needed for country's development, which made posible the further construction, also luxury hotels. There was a new crises in the 90s, when the prices went down.

Nowadays there have been building new commercial centres and hotels with special atractions to fullfill the offers and visitor's expectations as complementary service.

Economy group from Tenerife to Gran Canaria

Between Tenerife and Gran Canaria you have diferent posibilities of transport:
- ferry: cheaper one (3 hours) which costs 30 € both ways, or the more expensive one (1 hour) which costs around 80 €;
- aeroplane: costs from 60 - 100 € (depends on days).
So the conections between the islands and the penisland are quite good, which has the fundamental importance for tourism and industry.

The first golf court made in Spain was on Gran Canaria, which was founded by the english in the times of tax free trade. It is situated next to the big caldera that appeared due to the big vulcano explotion 2000 years ago.

PICTURES OF 21st, 22nd AND 23rd

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.180358718683516.63858.175539415832113

SOCIAL GROUP, 23rd of April 2011

Visit to San Cristobal de La Laguna and Anaga Natural Park.

For that two places, the most important for us part took place in La Laguna. First we were sightseeing along the old town, former upper town, which was the rich part of the city and currently World Heritage declared by UNESCO. On the other hand, we were taken to visit the lesser town, a place where poor people settled. The urban development of these neighbourhood was concretely during the 60s and 70s, when many migrants came back to La Laguna moved by the new economic situation, the same one that had made them to move to south America (especially Venezuela and Cuba) twenty years before, due to Franco’s autarchy. So, this place became the main area where immigrants settled.

Since that we have seen today the migration issue and due to we had already discussed about it yesterday, we have been now thinking through how to deal with this topic. Then, we realized is going to be hard to study. Once we reckon immigration is not releasable due to the difficulty to get data and carry out a proper field work in just three days, we decided not to study it itself. Discussing other ideas, we talked about social structure and differences and connections of old towns in midlands and new urban coastal areas within a municipality. Concretely, we have agreed that it is interesting the differences between these towns, not only in economics terms, but in social aspects. In order to develop that field work, we have seen that the municipality of Mogán in south Gran Canaria might be a good example for making that comparison. We will see it live in the upcoming days.

RURAL GROUP, 23rd of April 2011

Day 3

Today we went to visit “Parque Rural de Anaga” which is a rural Park with 14418,7 Has. Rural Parks are defined, as parks which not only preserve the environment itself but also the cultural heritage in it, like the traditional settlements (Casas-Cuevas), the manmade terraces, the customs and traditional activities such as livestock breeding (Goats) and subsistence cultivation, local products (cheese, wine, gofio).

The “Guanches”, coming from North Africa were the first who were cultivating the Anaga area because in this area the soils are the most productive ones. They lived in caves near the coast below 400 meters. Their economy was based on raising goats and collecting fruits and seafood.

Due to unpleasant conditions like low accessibility this territory experienced a high emigration starting in the sixties. The people mainly moved to La Laguna and Santa Cruz. Today many of them have their secondary home in Anaga and they return during the weekend for socio-economic reasons.

In 2001 the Rural Park had around 2500 habitants living in 26 settlements. Agriculture remains an important complement to the families budget. They have vineyards, are cultivating potatoes and raise cattle and goats. In addition, they fish. Wine production enabled the establishment of a “Wine-Route” which attracts many tourists.

The region has experienced a huge migration to the nearby urban areas. This has left a massive impact on the local population which gets older every year. To be continued…

Economy group, 23rd april, 2011

To correct the information of the national park Teide, we want to add, that this park is one of the most rentable parks in Spain. The price for the uplift to the mountain station and back is 25 €. Like we wrote yesterday, the visitors don't have to pay anything for entrance and parking. The area of the park is owned by the municipials around, but they don't have any authority. The head organisation is part of the national government. Because the park earns money this way, it is possible to subvent the park on Grand Canaria. To increase the incomes, it would be a possibility of introducing entrance fees for personal vehicles including special offers in combination with the ticket for the funicular, a discount in restaurants and a special offer for those who come by public transport. Another option would to give the visitors more informatin about the park area (for example teaching paths). In this case the people spend more time in the park and make them more sensible about the environment. If they stay longer they maybe also let more money in the park.

New Neighborhood

(..)Because of a bad economic situation on the islands during and after the second world war, many people from Tenerife emigrate to South America (Cuba and Venezuela). After economy relaxed in the 60s and the tourism gained importance, the former emigrants became immigrants again. There where two types of people coming back. The rich ones also called "the Indians" and the others who had no success in America, had to plant their own vegetables on their houses in the city. Later on they became part of the tourism business. The homecoming people influenced the economy by bringing their money back to Tenerife.

ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP, 23rd of April 2011

Anaga Mountains / La Laguna

Climate parameters on the island provide favourable condition for laurisilva forest to grow (air humidity, precipitation, temperature). These conditions are given in the northern expositions of the island on the altitude between 500 and 1500 m a.s.l. where clouds are being formed at this latitude. On the southern slopes of the island the opposite conditions (low humidity) makes it impossible to grow. During the recent glaciations the island provided niches where the laurisilva could survive, therefore it can be named tertiary forest.

From the ecological point of view the laurisilva has a special importance. Firstly it is the last remnant of this habitat that used to populate large areas and secondly it provides a vast biodiversity (higher density of species as continental Europe).

In the area of Anaga, which we visited, large amounts of laurel forest can be found. This Natural Park provides the special protection the forest requires in order to fulfil its valuable ecosystem functions.

It has to be mentioned that the area of Anaga represents one of three paleovolcanos spread across the island. Between Anaga and the Teide (youngest volcano) a basin was formed which in the recent past continuously filled up with sediments from both mountains and eventually facilitated the establishment of settlements (San Cristóbal de La Laguna). One of the factors that encouraged the foundation of the settlement was the presence of a lake within the basin. Due to human activities the lake gradually had to give way to pasture land use.

ERASMUS IP 2011. CANARY ISLANDS. SCHEDULE:

20th April, Wednesday. Arrival at Tenerife Sur airport. Accommodation in Puerto de la Cruz .

21st April, Thursday. Visit to Puerto de la Cruz: historic core and recent urban processes. Visit and meal in La Orotava. Welcome dinner.

22nd April, Friday. Visit to Teide National Park and Interpretation Centre. Route 4 (four hours).

23rd April, Saturday. Guided visit to La Laguna. Anaga Mountains: Interpretation Centre. Taganana – Benijo.

24th April, Sunday. Santa Cruz de Tenerife – Agaete (overview of a bananas cultivation area and explanation of process of abandonment and urbanization experienced in the last fifteen years). Visit to Bandama’s volcanic caldera. Villa de Santa Brígida and San Mateo. Accommodation in Playa del Inglés.

25th April, Monday. Playa del Inglés (gradient tourist resort). Maspalomas sand dunes. Lunch. Melonera’s Coast.

26th April, Tuesday. Route along the southern midlands of the island: area of dams, including explanations about the geological nature, the hydropower project underway, the harshness life in the Island south side and on the tops as well as the formations of ‘Pinus canariensis’. Meal at Tamadaba’s pine forest.

27th April, Wednesday. Work in groups.

28th April, Thursday. Work in groups. International Beach football Tournament and picnic.

29th April, Friday. Work in groups.

30th April, Saturday. Work in groups. Two presentations in the afternoon.

1st May, Sunday. Presentations in the morning. Agaete – Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Accommodation in Puerto de la Cruz. Farewell dinner.

2nd May, Monday. Flight back home.

ECONOMY GROUP, 22nd of April 2011

THE ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF THE NATIONAL PARK TEIDE:

The national park is meant to protect the value of the vulcanic landscape and it’s flora and fauna. From the protecting point of view its important to keep the biodiversity but from the economic point it’s another turistic atraction, which is not very rentable. The main reason of the turists that come to Tenerife are the beaches, sun and the sand and the Teide mountain is just only one of many atractions the island has, but not the main. Which is the reason that there is not much profit of them, so appears the question of how to finance it (just with the money of the goverment?). The entrance and parking in the national park are free, they get money only from the restaurantes there, which we suppose is not a relevant income.

The opportunities for the increasment of the incomes:

- golf courte

- wind farm

- entrance fees and parking fees for personal transport (cars à supporting the public transportation).

RURAL GROUP, 22nd of April 2011

The National Park Teide has both advantages and disadvantages for rural areas. It provides jobs and brings money to the local population, It offers education function, encourages several activities connected to Tourism. 9 million people visit the park in a year; this has a big impact on the economy. But this is also a disadvantage; transport, the big number of vehicules causes pollution, it could be possible to introduce some ecological alternatives of means of transportation.

SOCIAL GROUP, 22nd of April 2011

Visit to Teide. Hiking trip.

Today we have not seen any important social geography process itself, so we have discussed about what we will like to focus on the upcoming days, collecting all the ideas we have.

The main idea we have discussed is migration, concretely about people coming, immigration. We want to know where, how and why they are coming from, how they are organizing themselves and if they are adopting the local culture and habits, and how they are distribute in the islands. We are interested in their perceptions of the Canary Islands, and whether this place is only a getaway to the European Union or not.

Also, we have been discussing about the spatial structure of social groups. In that sense, today we ride through an altitude profile where we were able to see the changes in the land use and landscape. It is interesting how the rapid change of the economic system (from agriculture to tourism) has triggered many social processes; among them we may mention the displacement and gentrification, not only in cities, but in the whole territory.

As it can be seen, nowadays we are coming up with many interesting ideas. What we are sure about is that it would be interesting to analyze both quantitative and even better, qualitative data. It is therefore difficult to focus on one idea, also due to we do not see what is happening in Gran Canaria, where we will carry out our field work.

ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP, 22nd of April 2011

-The whole island of Tenerife is built up by volcanic rock. The different rock types developed due to different chemistry of the lava (acidic, intermediate, mafic), and different mechanisms of how the lava comes from the magma chamber to the surface. The latter can happen as a lavaflow, which forms solid rocks with little porosity, or as an explosive gaseous eruption which forms light and porous rocks.

Up to 1000m above sea level the vegetation of the northern exposure of Tenerife is dominated by agricultural land use. Above this altitude Pinus Canariensis can be found. This Pine Forest (Corona Forestal) has been planted by the order of the government of Franco in the year 1950 in order to capture the moisture of the clouds and prevent soil erosion. Before 1950 all the Pine Forest was cut for building economic purpose. Between 500m and 1500m.a.s.l. the Laurisilva Tree can be found. Reaching an altitude of 2000m and above Vegetation increasingly adapts to the special environmental conditions like strong winds, lack of water, lack of soils, high amplitudes of temperature change between day and night, summer and winter.

The present landscape is the result of the historical evolution of this previous factors. Each eruption was followed by a phase of erosion and finally many layers of various rock types were being deposited one above the other. As the different layers are variously susceptible to erosion the landscape we can find today evolved. Further special volcanic landforms are a caldera (radial subsidence of rock) and dykes, which are chimneys of magma rising through already deposited volcanic rock and solidify there.

ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP, 21st of April 2011

In order to understand environmental issues of a particular space (Canary Islands) we decided to split up the topic in 4 branches of physical geography. The hierarchy plays an important role. On the first place we put the geology and tectonics, as the islands have a volcanic origin. As a result of volcanic rock on one hand and the climatic factors on the other, which are mainly dominated by NE-Trade-Winds, a unique landscape (geomorphology) evolved. The 3 main types of landforms are volcanic lava flows with recent basaltic eruptions, landslides and cliffs. As a consequence of geomorphology, geology and climate different sections of vegetation, that generally profits from fertile soils, can be found on the islands. Those are distributed according to altitude (vertically), orientation (horizontally). Also the human impact has to be mentioned, as agricultural landuse has altered the natural vegetation.

SOCIAL GROUP, 21st of April, 2011

Anna Oberrauch, Nora-Csilla Vicsai, Aljaz Celarc, Carlos Alves, Jaime Jover Báez

Visit to Puerto de la Cruz and La Orotava.

We started discussing about what social geography is. For our research the main question is how different groups or individuals shaped the landscape and how they interacted with each other or they work against each other. In social geography from a human ecological point of view social groups compete against each other for best space for their needs.

In the discussion we identified several interesting issues, regarding the area we have visited. Firstly we discussed the uneven distribution of population and consequently some landscape conflicts. Landscape conflicts as a result of quick society changes from agriculture society to tertiary tourism economy system, since the 60s. Secondly, and linked to that we were told about the second residence matter, from people who usually live in the capital. So we have a special landscape in La Orotava where we were able to identify the different land use distribution too: there are agriculture use, old farmers; also people moved from the coast due to the ground prices increased heavily and families from the capital coming on holidays. This is an example of how distinct social groups interact in a territory.

Our conclusion was that we will have an open-mind the upcoming days for all social issues we will cope.

RURAL GROUP, 21st of April, 2011

Today we have been to a small town called “La Orotava”. It’s a typical example of what used to be a traditional rural area in the Canary Islands. This settlement has experienced many changes through different periods which can be seen in the different type of building. The traditional houses were near the fields on the plot. The storage was located on the ground floor and the living room was on the first floor. People still live on the first floor but the function of the ground floor has changed, now these places are used for tertiary activities or as a garage, like shops and restaurants, and fields near the house are either built or they are no cultivated because there is a lot of speculation.

The terraces show how agriculture was an important activity in the past. By this system the local farmers managed to use more space for agricultural activities. Now the Island is losing his agricultural areas in favor of urbanization. This could cause massive problems in future because food supply will be insufficient. The landscape is transforming from a rural to an urban one.

ECONOMY GROUP, 21st of April, 2011

The Canary islands are situated between 28 degrees north and 15 degrees west, which comprehends the subtropical belt. Due to the trade winds the north of the islands is very humid, with lots of precipitation, meanwhile the south is more desertic. In the 15th century the Canarias were conquered by the Spanish and they exchanged the products with the natives, who until then used agriculture only for self sufficency.

The economy of the islands was based on three fundaments:
1. number and quantity of resources available on the island;
2. comercial realtions with other continents;
3. number of inhabitants.

During the history there were regular crises in each century:
1. sugar cane: it was exported to Europe, the crisis emerge when the production of Cuba become cheaper (16th century);
2. vineyard: exportation to England, it's destroyed because of the sickness filoxera (19th century);
3. bananas and tomatoes: because of more competent, cheaper production of other countries (19th, 20th century);
4. tourism: it emerged in the 19th century with high quality tourism, later in 50s and 60s of the 20th century due to the Marshall plan started the massive tourism. The prices of the flights were going down, because the number of tourists was increasing. In the past few years there was a crisis, because the demand was lower than the offer (due to the mass construction of hotels) and the tourist focus is only on the south of the islands (better weather, because of that in the north the quality is going down). Recently it started to recover, mainly because of the conflicts in the countries of north Africa.

Acommodation in Gran Canaria: Apartamentos Las Camelias

http://www.apartamentoslascamelias.es/ingles.htm

Maps: Santa Brígida, South of Tenerife and Maspalomas

Maps: Photovoltaic Potential

Maps: Annual Average Temperature

Maps: urban pressure over Maspalomas sand dunes

In green, the Natural Protected Area of Maspalomas

Encyclopedia of Canary Islands

http://www.gevic.net/

This website is an online ecyclopedia about Canary Islands (only in spanish)

Photo album in facebook: sea of clouds

Some remote sensing images of the sea of couds in the facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=175539415832113&aid=60184

And a very short explanation of this phennomena here:

http://www.webtenerifeuk.co.uk/Sobre-Tenerife/Climatologia/MAR+DE+NUBES.htm?Lang=en

Weather forecasting

Worried about the clothes to wear in Canary Islands?

Check here the weather forecasting for 14 days in:

Tenerife: http://www.eltiempo.es/puerto-de-la-cruz.html

Gran Canaria: http://www.eltiempo.es/maspalomas.html

And for a more accuracy prediction (for just 3 days):

http://www.aemet.es/es/eltiempo/prediccion/provincias

Cartographic links (wms servers)

Most commonly used websites:

http://www.grafcan.es/ : Government-owned corporation of Canary Islands in the field of Cartography

http://www.idecan.grafcan.es/idecan/es/inicio.html: Grafcan’s SDI (Spatial Data Infrastructure) Catalog

http://visor.grafcan.es/visorweb/: Web viewfinder for the whole Cartography that Grafcan offers. Español, Português, Français, English and Deutsch are the languages in which you can see the basic information

http://www.idee.es/show.do?to=pideep_pidee.ES Official spanish website for Spatial Data Infraestructure/SDI (Infraestructura de Datos Espaciales/IDE), Apart from the four official Spanish languages they offers Português, Français and English

http://atlastenerife.es/TeIDE2/Principal.do;jsessionid=0DDF256AD3683200BA0D0E7B23510E78 Official cartography website for the island of Tenerife. Cabildo of Tenerife

http://www.idegrancanaria.es/ Official cartography website for the island of Gran Canaria. Cabildo of Gran Canaria

Other interesting websites:

http://www.redmic.es/ : Government-owned corporation of Canary Islands in the field of marine Cartography, specially SDI

http://212.64.170.45:81/redmic/ Redmic’s viewfinder

Join us in Facebook

This is our facebook page with photos, information, contact and more. It is a NOT OFFICIAL website of the IP, and it has to be understood as a way to let the participants to contact each others.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/IP-CANARY-ISLANDS-2011/175539415832113