National Parks
Garajonay
By h.b. - Jul 11, 2007 - 7:42 PM
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Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986, and a national park in 1981, the National Park of Garajonay occupies 3,986 hectares in the centre of La Gomera, in the Canary Islands.
More than 70% of the park’s area is covered by laurisilva, laurel forest, almost permanently enveloped in a mist which, along with the numerous streams and springs, provides the moisture which keeps the vegetation so lush. More than half the mature laurel forests remaining on the Canary Islands are found here.
Garajonay is described as a living fossil of the humid sub-tropical forests which, until the last ice age, once covered most of Europe.
The park occupies a large part of La Gomera’s central plateau (790-1,400m above sea level), with the peak from which it takes its name and the highest peak on the island, Garajonay, rising up to 1,484 metres. Its landscape is formed by a succession of valleys and low ridges, or lomadas, with the dramatic volcanic domes known as ‘Roques’ appearing from amongst the mass of forest. Spectacular eroded ravines add to the impressive landscape.
This national park is home to a number of native plant species: 120 are endemic to the Canary Islands, 26 to La Gomera itself, and nine which are mainly exclusive to the Park.
150 of the 1,000 species of invertebrate fauna to be found here are native to Garajonay. The island ecosystem has a less diverse vertebrate fauna, but is noted for four native species of bat, and two of its bird species – the white-tailed laurel pigeon and the dark-tailed laurel pigeon – which are endemic to the Canary Islands.
The name Garajonay is said to come from the legend of two Guanche lovers (the original inhabitants of the Canary Islands), Gara and Jonay, who fled to the highest peak on La Gomera when their families opposed their marriage, and there took their lives.
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