Parque Natural de Los Alcornocales

Los Alcornocales Natural Park
Parque natural de Los Alcornocales
IUCN category V (protected landscape/seascape)
El Picacho
Map of Andalusia
Location	Cádiz and Málaga provinces Andalusia, Spain
Coordinates	36°26′N 5°34′W / 36.43°N 5.56°W / 36.43; -5.56Coordinates: 36°26′N 5°34′W / 36.43°N 5.56°W / 36.43; -5.56
Area	1,677 km2 (647 sq mi)
Established	1989

Los Alcornocales Natural Park (in Spanish, Parque natural de Los Alcornocales) is a natural park located in the south of Spain, in the autonomous community of Andalusia; it is shared between the provinces of Cádiz and Málaga. The natural park occupies a territory spanning seventeen municipalities with a total population of about 380,000. "Los Alcornocales" means "the cork oak groves".

Nearly all of the uninhabited land in the park is covered by Mediterranean native forest. While some of the land has been cleared for cattle ranches, much of the human activity in the park is devoted to exploitation of the forest's resources: hunting wild game, collecting wild mushrooms, and foraging for good specimens of tree heath. The tree heath (Erica arborea, called "brezos" in Spanish) is a small evergreen shrub, rarely more than two or three meters high; it is the source of the reddish briar-root wood used in making tobacco pipes, and its wood is excellent raw material for making charcoal.

Above all, however, the park's forests are exploited for the production of cork. The cork oak (Quercus suber) is a tree with a spongy layer of material lying between the outer surface of its bark and the underlying living layer called the phloem (which, in turn, encloses the non-living woody stem.) Cork is generated by a specialized layer of tissue called cork cambium. Properly done, harvesting cork from a given tree can be undertaken every ten to twelve years without damaging the tree; the cork cambium simply regenerates it. Cork has many commercial uses, including wine-bottle stoppers, bulletin boards, coasters, insulation, sealing material for jar lids, flooring, gaskets for engines, fishing bobbers, handles for fishing rods and tennis rackets, etc.

Given the geographic position of Los Alcornocales, the dominant climate in the zone is, logically, Mediterranean, but a series of factors contribute to its uniqueness. Its close proximity to the sea helps keep the temperature relatively mild all year long. The average rainfall usually reaches over 800 L/m², with certain zones receiving more than 1,400 L/m² thanks to the ocean front. In the mountain ranges to the south, there are great fogs known as the barbas del Levante (the beards of the east wind). These fogs provide the humidity to form precipitation during the long dry seasons that usually characterize Mediterranean climates. The strong East wind is known as El Levante, and is associated with high temperatures. The wind from the West, which frequently brings rain, is known as El Poniente. These winds make this area one of the best places to construct wind farms in all of Spain.