Geographical heritage in natural protected areas of Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain)

Tenerife is the largest (2034 km²), and the highest (3718 m a.s.l.) island of the Canary. It has been built up as a result of the accumulation of different volcanic materials during the last 12 million years. In Tenerife it can be recognized different morphostructures: three shield volcanoes (Anaga, Teno and Adeje), two volcanic ridges (Pedro Gil and Abeque), a important volcanic field in the south of the island, a central caldera (Las Cañadas), a complex stratovolcano (Teide-Pico Viejo) and hundreds of cinder or scoria monogentic cones scattered throughout the island's geography. Despite this geological and volcanic richness, geological heritage is currently given less importance than biogegraphical heritage when identifying, defining and catalogue natural areas to protect (NPA). The objective of this work is to obtain the classification of geomorphological heritage of the total NPAs of the island and show the importance that these volcanic forms and their processes have in the natural landscapes of Tenerife. In this work we utilized the methodology elaborated by Serrano and González (2014) and involves a three-way comparison of the different values of the geomorphosites: scientific, cultural and use and management values. The values of geomorphological heritage are expressed from 1 to 5. Tenerife has forty-three NPAs with a total of more than 110,098 hectares, which represents more than 49% of its surface. The variety of NPAs are: one National Park, ten Natural Reserves, one Natural Park, two Rural Park, fourteen Natural Monuments, nine Protected Landscapes and six Sites of scientific interest. In general, the NPAs shows the geodiversity of Tenerife´s volcanism with average scientific (1.5), cultural (1.8) and use (2.6) values. These data show the importance of geoheritage in the NPAs of Tenerife (shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes, volcanic ridges, scoria cones, lava fields, hornitos, lava tubes, lava deltas, calderas, ravines, cliffs, beaches, dunes, etc.), but we can´t avoid the human intervention on several characteristics at these areas with cultural values over than scientific (mythos, legends, archaeological sites, traditional construction, crops, livestock, etc.). The geomorphological heritage analysis expressed the relationship between of the volcanic natural heritage and the humans. (Volturmac-MAC2/4.6c/298).