� EDITION 702 :: 23/08/2013 - 05/09/2013 :: ISLAND CONNECTIONSCanaryIslands

La Palma

Hunters’ protestOver a hundred cars noisily paraded in La Palma

recently, in protest at, “the ridiculously inappropri-ate hunting laws recently passed”.

“Our recommendations have been totally ignored”, says local hunter Jose Fernandez. “Now we’re obliged to leave our dogs at home, because we’re not allowed to take more out more than five at a time”.

A year ago, Valle Gran Rey in La Gomera experienced devas-

tating fires, complicated by incomprensible health and safety laws that effectively barred islanders from doing what they’ve always done and saving their property.

Nobody was allowed to stay home to protect prop-erty. Those who did risked hefty fines. To add insult to injury, anti-riot police (not firemen) were drafted in to ensure that all obeyed and let their houses burn.

This beautiful valley was turned into a blackened ruin over the night of Au-gust 12/13, 2012, with 80 houses burned, nearly 40 of which are in much the same condition today, own-ers still waiting for com-pensation.

A year on, absolutely nothing has changed, de-spite much talk. The people of this valley, like islanders throughout the Canaries, have made ef-

La Gomera’s firefiGhters.

Alone againthey’re on their own. With three fires to date and the hottest, driest part of the summer to come, the memory of last year’s nightmare looms large.

A volunteer firefight-ing force was formed last year and Valle Gran Rey’s council has now very in-telligently announced its intention to, “collaborate, with any available fund-ing, in such tasks as extin-guishing fires, life-saving work, fire and risk preven-tion and any work related to protection of the local population, given the vol-unteers’ dedication to pro-tect both the area and its inhabitants”.

The volunteer firefight-ers are men and women who have now undergone basic training. Many of them were directly af-fected by last year’s fires. There are collecting box-es in most of the valley’s shops and people give their change willingly to support this local initia-tive, but official support is both timely and welcome.

Gardeners in the Nation-al Botanical Gardens

in Wales rejoiced lately when their Canarian Drago tree blossomed for the first time in the 25 years since it arrived.

The Canary Islands dragon tree (Dracaena draco), whose blossoms can reach a height of 1.2m, was planted in the gardens in 1988, when it was 15 years old, and lives in a gi-ant greenhouse. The par-ticularly clement summer conditions that Britain has experienced are thought to be the reason for the tree’s joyful crop of flowers.

The iconic drago, en-demic here but possibly of African origin, is in dan-ger of extinction, and the event of its blossoming

nario, grows in Icod de los Vinos in the northwest of the island. It is the largest and oldest living plant of the species in the Canaries and possibly in the world, though latest studies date it at between 800 and 1,000 years old, not the thou-sands that were first sug-gested.

The previous oldest ex-ample here, catalogued by Alexander von Humbolt and reported by Fenzi as being 78 feet in circumfer-ence and over 75 feet high, was in La Orotava and was reputed to be over 6,000 years old. It was lost dur-ing a storm in 1867.

The majority of the few examples of Dracaena dra-co remaining live here in the archipelago and in Por-tugal and Africa.

was so exciting that it even made it onto the British BBC news.

The sap of the tree was historically used, amongst others: in religious cere-

forts to take matters back into their own hands, given that there is no increased provision for fire preven-tion or fighting. The same students with minimal training, the heroes of last year’s fire who risked their lives fighting a fire that

needed full air support and trained firemen, are again the first line of de-fence, having signed low paid summer contracts for work designated “fire pre-vention and vigilance”.

Everybody knows the truth: if there’s a fire,

The annual Natura 2000 Network bird

photography competition is now open.

This is the sixth year that the internationally renowned FotoAves con-test, open to profession-als and amateurs, has been run by the SEO/BirdLife organisation.

The Natura 2000 net-work is a European wide initiative dedicated to the preservation of bird species and their habitat. It includes 26,000 differ-ent areas of land with a total surface of almost one million square kilo-metres. Around 30 per cent of Spanish territory belongs to the Natura 2000 network, the most of any European coun-

try: 15 million hectares. Each of the Canary Is-lands has zones included in the network. You can see a complete list at: http://www.interreg-bionatura.com/canari-as.php.

There are three cate-gories for entrants in the competition: Red Natura 2000 Birds; Red Natura 2000 Landscapes; and Man and the Red Natura 2000. In the 2012 edition over 240 photographers took part, from a total of seven different countries so competition is high.

Those wishing to take part have until October 15 to submit their en-tries. Information can be found at: www.naya-de.es/fotoaves2013 or see: www.seo.org.

Photo competition

Birds And protected hABitAt

monies by the Guanches, as medicine and to dye Stradivarius violins! It’s one of the symbols of Ten-erife and its best known example, the Drago Mile-

WeLsh deLiGht

Blooming dragon!News in Brief >>

photo: 702 / ci / foto aves

By Barbara Belt

The Drago at Icod is several hundred years old