Dried up pond in Erjos, March 2012. Photo by Steve Andrews
Tenerife News media are not reporting much about a number of environmental issues affecting the island. The worst problem is the ongoing drought that is drying up everything and killing vegetation that shrivels in the heat. Ponds are dried up or in the process of drying up and reservoirs are very low. Unless the island has heavy rainfall soon this will mean disaster for farmers. In Erjos, where the ponds are a real haven for wildlife, most of the water has dried up leaving cracked and caking mud to bake in the heat. Water birds such as Coots and Moorhens will have to fly away in search of a new home unless the rains fall soon.
Besides the drought problem, pine forests are losing trees killed by bark beetles and the island's Dragon Trees are under attack by a species of scale insect. There are dead and dying trees to be seen all around the island. This is a sign that all is not well at all, and yet so few people seem to notice or care and the local media is not reporting these matters.
Tenerife relies on tourists coming here and a main attraction that the island offers besides the sunshine and beaches is its incredible countryside. The forests are a big part of this but Canary Pines are under attack and many are dead. Bark beetles are killing them and others were severely damaged by approaching hurricane force winds that battered Tenerife back in the winter of 2010.
Tenerife News of the environment that doesn't get reported
Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.
