Garajonay National Park
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How it came to be
Garajonay National Park covers 3,984 ha in the centre and north of La Gomera in the Canary Islands, about 11 percent of the island, and reaches into all six of its municipalities. It protects laurel forest, or laurisilva, a humid evergreen forest of a kind that was widespread in Europe in the Tertiary and now survives mainly on the Atlantic islands of Macaronesia. Fog often wraps the forest, and its streams are an important source of water for the island.
The park is named after Garajonay, the island's highest point at 1,487 m. A popular legend tells of Gara, a princess of Agulo, and Jonay, son of the king of Adeje on Tenerife, lovers who took their own lives on the mountain. The story is first recorded only in 1924, in the newspaper Gaceta de Tenerife, and the lovers' names are back-formations from Garajonay, which can be read as high crag in the Guanche language. Rock outcrops such as La Fortaleza were held sacred by the island's native people and served as refuges when they were attacked.
Spain declared the national park on 25 March 1981, the fourth in the Canary Islands, and UNESCO inscribed it in 1986; in 2012 the whole island became a biosphere reserve. The forest holds about 450 species of vascular plants and two pigeons found only in the Canaries. A fire that broke out on 4 August 2012 burned more than 4,000 ha of the island, including 747 ha of the park, about 18 percent of its area.
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