Waching daily Apr 26 2017

There are landscapes that seem closer to heaven than to the world we tread on.

The Cantabrian Range is one of them.

A gigantic wave of rock and forest, which covers almost the entire north facade of our country,

from Galicia to the Basque Country.

This is a gathering place, where human culture meets the fabulous makings of nature.

Here, *cortines* (structures to protect the beehives from bears),*pallozas* (thatched buildings) and *brañas* (upland pastures)

shake hands with the wildest forests and wildlife of our country.

Is this Paradise? It certainly looks like it, but it is also a threatened world.

Demolition has already bitten into these landscapes.

The Cantabrian Mountains raise the northern profile of the Iberian Peninsula,

as if they were trying to look away over the cool seawaters

where they get some of their most genuine characteristics.

These young mountains, of old foundations,

hinges on a continuous mountainous spine; rugged to the north and somewhat milder to the south,

yielding progressively softer reliefs at the both eastern and western edges.

This complex sum of landscapes shows multiple geographic units

and displays diverse, distinct environments.

From its confines, the old reliefs of the hercynian Sierra de Courel and Los Ancares to the west,

and the younger mountain ranges that conform the Basque mountains to the East,

the Cantabrian Mountains climb towards their summits,

in the formidable limestone massif of Los Picos de Europa.

This is a world of contrasts and contacts.

The humid Atlantic domain weaves its influence with the tip of the Mediterranean domain.

Meanwhile, limestone dominates the eastern and central range,

and surrenders to the archaic slate and quartzite in the west.

Pleistocene glaciations, which occurred during the last two million years,

are the key to understand our development as a species

and the current morphology of the whole Cantabrian Mountains.

In that period, ice covered the highlands and the major mountain ranges in Europe.

These icy mantles caused the deep glacial molding whose traces are found even today.

Besides, the calcareous nature of materials confers a distinctive look to much of the Cantabrian morphology,

mainly due to the process of karstification, or dissolution of the limestone.

Examples of this can be the *jous* of Los Picos de Europa

and the deep and narrow gorges that drain and section the massif.

Caves, galleries and underground rivers draw a dark and different world in the depths of these mountains.

Recurrent melting of glaciers gave great erosive potential to the Cantabrian rivers,

which shows in the potent riverine deposits that covered the valley bottoms

and formed fertile lowlands that later sustained early human habitation.

Today, the Cantabrian Range serves as meeting point for two major ecoregions.

On the one hand, the Eurosiberian region, with its deciduous forests

and the humidity of its rain and fogs;

On the other, the Mediterranean region, with its broader climatic range,

and whose period of summer drought shapes the evergreen forests of holm oaks and cork trees.

Nature's main strategy is to multiply itself.

Specially because there is no other way to ensure the continuity of life on our planet.

The Cantabrian Range is a great example of the endless faces Nature can adopt.

That huge ability to diversify helps us, the human beings, to maintain our own future.

The Cantabrian Mountains harbor unique floral formations.

Some species have their last redoubts in these mountains.

The deciduous forests of oak, birch and beech,

side by side with stands of holm oak

and mixed forests of limes, maples, rowans, hollies and yews

form unique groves, very rare in other places.

Shrublands of brooms, heaths and bilberry

cover large swaths of the mountain range

and are vital to the natural recovery of the forests.

They also build an ecosystem, with the traits of uplands above the tree line.

Higher up, high mountain pastures own the scene, covering what space rock and scree let free.

As for the fauna, vertebrate assemblages are diverse, and still quite complete.

Some species of large carnivores, like bears and wolves, still survive and coexist here,

whereas they are absent or rare elsewhere in Western Europe.

Also abundant are roe deer,

chamois

wild boars

and red deer, all of them managed as game species.

Other more discreet but equally fascinating dwellers may be seen,

like the endemic broom hare, the only mammal species exclusive of the Cantabrian Mountains.

And within the feathered fauna, one more relict species,

the imposing, somewhat mythical Cantabrian capercaillie, fighting not to disappear forever,

because it suffers a severe demographic crisis with no clean outlooks.

Other interesting cast of birds call home

to these forests, shrubs, rocky outcrops and meadows.

Several species of amphibians and reptiles

like the golden-striped salamander or the Cantabrian adder

are also part of the vibrant, though struggling, animal landscape.

The cold impetuous waterfalls and rivers of the north

still see the ramblings of the Pyrenean desman

or the courageous migrations of salmons, sea-trouts, and lampreys.

Anytime we can meet with the world of the almost invisible,

so small that it becomes essentially a surprise.

It is the throbbing cosmos of insects and other invertebrates

some relict and endemic to these mountains.

The main changes induced on natural systems by our civilization

took place in the fertile areas of temperate climate, kinder to our existence and development.

Historically, and as human settlements became more numerous,

the forests of the Cordillera fell.

Man needs, such as housing, fuel, or food for livestock, deepened the footprint.

Every new social structure with their different techniques has brought a new change in the environment.

On the first canvas of life, this landscape mosaic was thus painted,

still recognizable in some areas of the Cantabrian Mountains.

The usage of the mountains became more aggressive with time.

Entire forests fell, either by fire or ax,

or surrendered their domain to livestock,

see a long-lasting change in the landscape

After countless centuries building the magnificent spectacle of such large amount of life,

the Cantabrian Mountains have recently been attacked by insolence,

which moves at tremendous speed, threatening the heart of this extraordinary world.

The current abandonment of traditional activities

and the overall decline of the rural culture

have been preparing the ground for further attacks, which occur everywhere.

Many of those, in fact, hypocritically demanding a return to former lifestyles.

The non-stop consumerism of modern society asks for more, a lot more more.

Lately, we engulf even places that had been preserved coherently from our needs,

or rather from our greed.

The incorporation of modern technologies, as well as the unstoppable and growing demand

for resources and energy, is causing a worsening surge in the mountains

through potent processes of extraction, and transformation.

Fire continues to demolish thousands of trees and shrubs every year

Even today, paradoxically, one of the wettest areas of the Peninsula is,

the one registering the highest number of fires, both in summer and winter.

However, it would be a clumsy claim in the society we live in, to promote

forsaking many comforts that we have achieved through decades.

But no less clumsy would it be

disdaining the nature that surrounds us, sustains us,

and that we share with many other species.

It is inevitable realizing that, ultimately, everything that improves our quality of life

comes from natural resources: water, food, raw materials and energy,

and that they can only be provided by a healthy nature.

Because a living environment is nothing but a well-preserved, protected nature.

Nature never wastes time, and, especially in places such as the Cantabrian Mountains,

it can be regarded as a tireless unpaid worker,

keeps providing services that humans are utterly incapable to carry out.

These mountains attract rain, create soil, maintain biodiversity,

and nourish our spirit with the longing of uninterrupted beauty,

which always accompanies the best facet of the human being.

Its protection should be a priority for our society.

Mountains are one of the most important of the valuables of nature.

The ecosystem services they provide are irreplaceable,

and infinitely worthier than any economical benefit obtained their destruction.

Through scientific research and environmental awareness,

we should achieve a broad social awareness of the need and importance of preserving mountains.

Awareness should be anticipated by politicians, leading to an effective protection of these lands.

A collection of beautiful synonyms, from Los Ancares to Las Peñas de Aralar,

from Picu Urriellu to El Gorbea,

from Las Merindades to Las Fuentes Carrionas,

everything here is a mosaic,

and each of these names the precious and irreplaceable tile that evokes that everything in Nature is unity.

That we cannot break up the parts of the beautiful Cantabrian Range,

It is something we need to keep alive so the future generations may have the opportunity to enjoy this unique framework.