Archive for the 'Environment' Category

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Sanctuary for whales and dolphins

Friday, March 23rd, 2007
The government of the Canary Islands wants the seas off the west coast of Africa to be declared a sanctuary for cetaceans, the order of mammals to which dolphins and whales belong. They would like to see the protected area cover all of the Macaronesia islands – the collective name for the five volcanic archipelagos of the Azores, Madeira and Salvages (Portuguese), the Canaries (Spanish) and Cape Verde (independent). The proposal will be discussed at an International Conference for the Protection of Dolphins in Tenerife in November. The conference is one of a series of worldwide events being held to mark the International Year of Dolphins, with representatives attending from Spain, Portugal and African countries. The dolphin campaign is an initiative of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. It has the enthusiastic backing of the Loro Parque Foundation in Puerto de ...

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Posted by Ken

Comments: Leave a Comment » Categories: All about Tenerife, Dolphins, Environment, Loro Parque, Nature, Puerto de la Cruz, Tourism, Whales

Where paradise is zero degrees!

Saturday, March 10th, 2007
penguins.jpg Snow falls every day in Tenerife – up to 12 tons of it on to a bleak, rocky landscape where the temperature never rises above zero degrees. Impossible you might think in this island of eternal spring, where the sun shines all year round and the climate is reckoned by many to be the best on the planet. While the sun worshippers spend lazy days on the beaches of Puerto de la Cruz in the north of the island, just a few yards away conditions are very different for the residents of Planet Penguin at Tenerife’s most popular visitor attraction, Loro Parque This penguin paradise replicates in minute detail the habitat of their native Antarctica, where the world’s largest fridge maintains a constant temperature of air and water, and where snow falls throughout the day ...

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Posted by Ken

Comments: Leave a Comment » Categories: All about Tenerife, Environment, Locations, Loro Parque, Puerto de la Cruz, Tourism

Scientists baffled by hole in earth’s crust

Friday, March 9th, 2007
In a bizarre parallel to the classic Jules Verne science fiction novel ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’, written nearly 150 years ago, a team of British scientists has set sail from Tenerife to try to find out why a huge hole has opened up deep in the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. The 12-strong team left the island capital of Santa Cruz aboard the new British research ship, RRS James Cook, to examine an area some 2,000 nautical miles south west of Tenerife where the earth’s mantle is exposed to the sea floor. Their investigations will be made possible by the latest high-tech equipment on board the new vessel, including a robotic device called Toby, which will extract rock samples at the site and film for the first time the planet’s ‘green’ interior. The hole is some 16,000 feet below ...

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Posted by Ken

Comments: Leave a Comment » Categories: All about Tenerife, Environment, Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Tenerife powers ahead

Thursday, March 8th, 2007
The tiny island of Tenerife is leading the world in the implementation of solar power. The largest solar energy plant in the world will soon to be in full production at Granadilla de Abona in the south of the island, contributing enough energy to the island electricity grid to power 10,000 homes. Sunshine is never in short supply on the island and the regional government is hoping that by the year 2015 as much as 30 per cent of the electricity used in the Canary Islands will be generated using wind and solar technology. The new Granadilla plant has 200 solar panels, each designed to produce 20 megawatts though early tests have shown them to be producing around 30 per cent more than predicted.

Posted by Ken

Comments: Leave a Comment » Categories: All about Tenerife, Environment, Granadilla de Abona, Weather

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