Macaronesia in the Atlantic Ocean
Friday, 31 December 2021 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: European Union / Europäische Union Category/Kategorie: General , UNESCO World Heritage
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Cámara de Lobos, Madeira © Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez/cc-by-sa-4.0
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Macaronesia is a collection of four
volcanic archipelagos in the
North Atlantic Ocean , off the coasts of the continents of
Africa and
Europe . Each archipelago is made up of a number of
Atlantic oceanic islands , which are formed by
seamounts on the ocean floor and have peaks above the ocean’s surface. Some of the Macaronesian islands belong to
Portugal , some belong to
Spain , and the rest belong to
Cape Verde . Politically, the islands belonging to Portugal and Spain are part of the
European Union . Geologically, Macaronesia is part of the
African tectonic plate . Some of its islands – the
Azores – are situated along the edge of that plate at the point where it abuts the
Eurasian and
North American plates. Macaronesia consists of four main
archipelagos . From north to south, these are: the
Azores , an
Autonomous Region of
Portugal ,
Madeira (also including the
Savage Islands ), an
Autonomous Region of
Portugal , the
Canary Islands , an
Autonomous Community of
Spain and
Cape Verde , an independent
West African country.
In one biogeographical system, the Cape Verde archipelago is in the Afrotropical realm while the other three archipelagos are in the Palearctic realm . According to the European Environment Agency , the three European archipelagos constitute a unique bioregion , known as the Macaronesian Biogeographic Region . The World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions places the whole of Macaronesia in its botanical continent of Africa.
Town hall of Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel Island, Azores © Diego Delso/cc-by-sa-4.0
The name Macaronesia is derived from the
Greek words meaning “
islands of the fortunate ” (
μακάρων νήσοι ,
makárōn nēsoi ). The name was first used by
ancient Greek geographers to refer to any islands west of the
Strait of Gibraltar . Macaronesia is occasionally misspelled “Macronesia” in false analogy with
Micronesia , an unrelated group of archipelagos in the Pacific Ocean whose English name is also derived from Greek.
Much of the original native vegetation has been displaced because of human activity, including felling forests for timber and firewood, clearing vegetation for grazing and agriculture, and introducing foreign plants and animals into the islands. The laurisilva
habitat has been reduced to small disconnected pockets. As a result, many of the endemic
biota of the islands are now seriously
endangered or extinct. Alien predators – in particular domestic and
feral cats – currently pose one of the most serious threats to the endemic fauna. Even though cats prey mostly on other foreign-introduced mammals, such as
rodents and
rabbits , the abundance of such prey sustains such a large feline population that it has initiated a so-called hyperpredation process), which further increases that population’s negative impact on the number of endemic reptiles and birds. Since 2001, the European Union’s conservation efforts, mandated by its
Natura 2000 regulations, have resulted in the protection of large stretches of land and sea in the Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands, totaling 5000 km².
Read more on
Wikipedia Macaronesia (
Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State -
Weather report by weather.com -
Johns Hopkins University & Medicine - Coronavirus Resource Center -
Global Passport Power Rank -
Democracy Index -
GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank -
Global Competitiveness Report -
Corruption Perceptions Index -
Press Freedom Index -
World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index -
UN Human Development Index -
Global Peace Index -
Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index ). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at
comment@wingsch.net . Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.
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