Canary Islands’ forests store more carbon than previously thought
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Scientists from the University of La Laguna (ULL), Germany’s Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, and Spain’s CSIC recently determined that the forests of the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago, store 10.26 million tons of carbon.
The research team created high-resolution maps showing carbon storage across 112,735 hectares of forested land. This new estimate is 25% higher than the previous calculation made by Spain’s Ministry for the Ecological Transition in 2020, and provides a more detailed understanding of carbon distribution.
The study revealed that La Palma holds the largest carbon store within the archipelago, 4.14 million tons, nearly 40% of the total, followed by Tenerife and La Gomera. Canary Island pine forests store the most carbon overall, accounting for 57.1% of the total, while laurisilva forests, a type of evergreen forest, hold 37%.
Researchers found that the laurisilva forests in Garajonay National Park on La Gomera store exceptionally high levels of carbon, reaching up to 413.2 tons per hectare, comparable to those found in tropical rainforests. The study currently represents a snapshot of carbon storage, and future research will focus on assessing how quickly these forests absorb carbon and identifying factors influencing this process.
