The biosphere nature reserves in Spain that are not talked about enough

In 2021, UNESCO determined 53 territories within Spain as Biosphere Natural Reserve (RNB), making it the country with the highest number of territories with this status. They are volcanoes, forests, glasers, sand dunes, rivers, together with all their flora, fauna and fungus, constituting 15% of the country's wealth.

Since 1976, when the first reserves were recognised by UNESCO, the definition has changed a lot and what at first were only protected areas, have now evolved to be, in addition to conservation areas, spaces in which the principles and practices of sustainable development, always with the respect and care of life as the highest priority.

Spread across 16 of the 17 autonomous communities that make up what is known as Spain, these Biosphere Reserves are true pieces of paradise and extraordinary travel destinations for those who enjoy the Earth in its purest forms.

Although there is so much to see, here is a list of five Biosphere Nature Reserves in Spain for you to choose your next destination.

This reserve on the island of Menorca, in the Balearic Islands, is particularly renowned for its coastal landscapes, unspoilt beaches, wetlands and enormous biodiversity of marine and terrestrial species.

Menorca was declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1993 and is home to the best-preserved natural sites in the Mediterranean. This island in the far east of Spain is 695.7 km², which contains a nature park, five nature reserves, a marine reserve and 19 Natural Areas of Special Interest, comprising almost 40% of the island.

The core of the RNB is the Albufera Natural Park, a 67-hectare free-water lagoon, separated from the sea only by a sand barrier. Hundreds of different animal species live here, including an enormous variety of birds, many of them exotic. In the winters, over eleven thousand waterfowl of almost a hundred different species have been counted.

Towards the northeast there is a dune system through which a channel runs that connects with the sea, and towards the end of this same direction, almost where the Natural Park ends, is the Favàritx lighthouse, which stands on enormous black slate stones, in what looks more like a lunar than terrestrial setting.

The Lanzarote Reserve is another of the Canary Islands that have been declared, in their entirety, as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO, due to their natural and cultural richness. Being a volcanic island, the landscapes here look more like lunar than terrestrial, with mountains of black stones, lava flows that have become petrified over time and natural pools that take on psychedelic colours due to the mixture of salt and minerals in the subsoil.

Part of the charm of Biosphere Reserves is that they are not only pristine natural spaces, but they work on a cultural level as well, promoting the balanced and sustainable coexistence of human environments with the rest of the species. In Lanzarote you can see, for example, the work of the artist César Manrique who inserts modernist architecture into natural spaces in a way that is both organic and singular. He can be seen in the Casa-Museo César Manrique, in the LagOmar Museum, the Monumento Al Campesino, in the Jameos del Agua, among others.

In the province of Malaga, Sierra de las Nieves is adored for its limestone mountains, its snow-capped peaks and its forest of Spanish firs, an extraordinary and protected species of Andalusian fir.

The Andalusians have a close and important relationship with this reserve, enormous in extension, with its 22,979 hectares. This is where they say they "conquered the snow", for for centuries it was from the peaks of the Sierra de las Nieves that ice was extracted and transported across the region. Now, of course, there are machines that freeze the water, but this so-called conquest shows the closeness that people here have to their land.

The Andalusians are also proud of their fir trees, which only exist in this reserve. There is even a special trail - the Pinsapo de las Escaleretas - for those who come here eager to see these rare specimens, which are considered living fossils as they have been on Earth for 66 million years.

As for the mountains here, their adoration is not anodyne, for they are not mountains like any other. The minerals of which they are composed generate a karst landscape, eroded by time and the elements that gave the stones the shapes of chasms and caves, such as the Gato, which attracts people from all over the world for its eccentricity and beauty.

Close to the border with France, in the Catalan region of Girona, some forty volcanic cones and as many lava flows of what was once bubbling magma but is now petrified, with its folds that look like black bitumen, rise up from the ground. The Garrotxa Volcanic Zone Natural Park, unlike the other areas mentioned here, is not recognised by UNESCO as a GNI, but the Catalan government has endeavoured to protect and enhance it for its beauty, uniqueness and rich biodiversity.

These forty volcanoes, last active 11,000 years ago, are now extraordinary hiking territory and home to a beech forest, the Fageda d'en Jordà, which is unique in its kind as the blackness of the lava contrasts with the bright green forest.

In addition to the trails in this landscape, in the territory of this Natural Park you can visit Castellfollit de la Roca, one of the smallest municipalities in the whole of Spain, measuring barely one kilometre. But it is not its smallness that is most surprising, but its location. This little village is perched on a very high cliff, advancing along the balcony of the rock like the houses that follow an avenue, one next to the other, looking towards the basalt cliff.