Guadarrama National Park

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A glacial lake in Guadarrama National Park.

Granite rocks in the National Park.

Guadarrama National Park (in Spanish: Parque Nacional de Guadarrama) is a proposed national park. The project would protect approximately 370 km² of the most valuable zone of the Mountain range of Guadarrama (Sistema Central), located in the provinces of Madrid, Segovia and Ávila (Spain). This National Park would be the fourth-largest in Spain.

The Peñalara Mountain climbing society proposed in the 1920s that the Guadarrama mountain range (in Spanish: Sierra de Guadarrama) should be declared a National Park. This project had to be put on hold until the beginning of the twenty-first century, when the Community of Madrid revived the project. The part of the National Park falling within the boundaries of the Community of Madrid has already been planned^[1]. The autonomous community of Castile and Leon agreed in principle to the incusion of part of its territory in the proposed National Park. However, delays have subsequently been experienced in creating the corresponding plan. It is reported in the press that as Castile and Leon is suffering from population loss, its government is reluctant to restrict development in land near Madrid, as it is more attractive to developers than the remoter districts of the autonomous community. The reasons given by Castile and Leon publicly for the delays include the protection of the interests of traditional users of the land (including commercial forestry)^[2].

The project tries to protect the eleven different ecosystems present in the Guadarrama mountains, including the only Iberian examples of "high Mediterranean mountain". Altogether, in the zone that will be declared National Park there are more than 1,280 different species, of which 13 are in danger of extinction, more than 1,500 native plants and 30 different types of vegetation. The species present animals in the future park represent 45% of the total fauna of Spain and 18% of the European. Between the vegetal species they honor the scots pine, the oak, the juniper, the oak and piorno, among other many. As regards fauna, there are many mammals such as deer (red, roe and fallow), wild boar, wild goats, badgers, several mustelidaes, wild cats, foxes, hares, etc.; many species of waterfowl in the reservoirs, and great raptors like the imperial eagle or the Eurasian Black Vulture.