Alegranza

Alegranza
Aerial view, looking north
Waters	Atlantic Ocean
Archipelago	Chinijo Archipelago ( Canary Islands )
Geographical location	29 ° 23 '34 "  N , 13 ° 30' 33"  W Coordinates: 29 ° 23 '34 "  N , 13 ° 30' 33"  W.
surface	10.3 km²
Highest elevation	Montaña de Alegranza 289  msnm
Residents	uninhabited
Location north of Lanzarote

Alegranza is the northernmost of the Canary Islands belonging to Spain . It is located in the Chinijo archipelago off Lanzarote . It is administered by the local municipality of Teguise .

geography

The uninhabited island of Alegranza is 10.3 square kilometers and is located about 10 kilometers north of the smallest inhabited Canary Island La Graciosa off the northern tip of Lanzarote .

The highest point on the island, the Montaña de Alegranza , lies in the west at 289 meters above sea level. It is a tuff cone with a crater basin that is 240 meters deep and about 1.1 kilometers in diameter. Alegranza has two other volcanoes: Montaña Lobos with 226 meters high and La Rapadura with 115 meters high.

character

View from Lanzarote

In the past, some farmers lived on Alegranza for a while. Today you can still find sanded slopes, ruins of houses and cisterns . Like the entire Chinijo archipelago, the island is now a protected area as part of the Parque Natural del Archipielago Chinijo . Visitors to the island need a permit from the island government's environmental agency (Medioambiente del Cabildo), only members of the owner's family have unrestricted access.

Alegranza is 80 percent privately owned by a Lanzarote family. Public property includes the first 100 meters above the Alegranzas flood line, the lighthouse with the surrounding area and the main path known as Camino Real . In 2008, the island's 20-meter-wide coastal protection strip, which belongs to the public, was widened to 100 meters by the Coastal Protection Authority , as the Coastal Protection Act has provided for it since 1988. This significantly reduced the area to be sold privately. Sales negotiations between the owners and the Spanish Ministry of the Environment have been going on for some time. As a buyer, there is no question of private individuals, because the Spanish Council of Ministers declared in September 2007 that the islands of Alegranza and Montaña Clara , which are also for sale , are not for profit . The Spanish state is therefore being discussed as a buyer to include the islands in its protected areas.

The flora of Alegranzas consists mainly of milkweed plants . The fauna mainly includes breeding seabirds. From July to November of each year, around 10,000 pairs nest on the island, the world's second largest population of yellow-billed shearwaters . Since your chicks are often used in typical Spanish dishes such as paella and potaje , they must continue to be protected from nest looters. Looting has been banned since 1986, but since 1998 the WWF has always set up a team to deter poachers on the island during the summer months. This group, which changes every two weeks, consists of a coordinator and around five volunteers. Since then, poaching, including seafood such as limpets , is said to have decreased significantly. Furthermore, the practiced environmental protection of the respective group consists of collecting civilization garbage, especially on the north coast. Since 2006, the project has been financed by the Plan de Acción del Voluntariado en Parques Nacionales program , even if the status of a national park does not exist. The program is under the authority of the Ministry of the Environment, OAPN - Organismo Autonomo de Parques Nacionales .

Alegranza has also been part of the Bien de Interés Cultural since December 20, 2002 .

lighthouse

At the Punta Delgada , on a narrow headland in the extreme east, the 15-meter-high Faro de Punta Delgada lighthouse , which went into operation on April 30, 1865 and is 18 meters above sea level, is still in operation today. At the gray tower with the coordinates 29 ° 24.1 'N; 13 ° 29.2 'W adjoins a white building. The lighthouse is solar powered by twelve 24 volt solar collectors. A battery with a capacity of 1160  ampere hours stores the energy for the 150 watt halogen lamp. A small concrete jetty protrudes a few meters south into the sea directly at the lighthouse.

Web links

Commons : Alegranza  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Instituto Nacional de Estadística. (National Statistics Institute) . Ine.es. May 28, 2001. Retrieved September 15, 2010.
2. ↑ Friederike Klinge: Environmental and bird protection on Alegranza. Inselmagazin Lanzarote 37 °, 2009, accessed on July 20, 2010 (German). 
3. ↑ Ayudas a la Navegación: Señales Marítimas ( Memento of August 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive )