In recent years, we have made significant progress in mitigating climate change. We have deployed renewable energy, improved efficiency, promoted self-consumption and electric mobility, and reduced emissions. Mitigation has a clear goal: to tackle the causes of global warming by reducing greenhouse gases. It is a demanding task, but conceptually straightforward — it means emitting less.
Adaptation, however, is a more complex challenge. To adapt means to prepare for the impacts we are already experiencing: heat waves, wildfires, droughts, floods, or biodiversity loss. While mitigation addresses the causes, adaptation deals with the consequences. It is therefore more diverse, uncertain, and context-dependent. There is no universal recipe: what works in one territory may not work in another. It requires local knowledge, cross-sectoral coordination, planning, and a new way of thinking about development.
Gran Canaria understood this need before 2019, but the great wildfire of that summer acted as a historic accelerator. The fire, which devastated more than 10,000 hectares, was not a starting point but a turning point. It confirmed that climate change was no longer a future threat — it had become a daily reality. From that moment on, we picked up the pace. There was no time to lose.
Six years later, Gran Canaria has consolidated itself as a living laboratory of climate adaptation. This is not rhetoric but reality on the ground. In Maspalomas, the Masdunas project has brought life back to the dune system by removing invasive species and restoring native vegetation. The dunes move again, ecosystems regenerate, and the landscape now protects itself better from wind, erosion, and heat. In the north, the LIFE Nieblas project has achieved something both poetic and effective: harvesting water from fog to restore a degraded thermophilic forest. More than 15,000 endemic trees are growing today thanks to the mist, without consuming fossil energy. And along the coast, LIFE COSTAdapta is testing new ways of protecting the shoreline through natural structures, tidal pools, and soft reefs that reduce wave energy while restoring beaches and biodiversity. We are not building walls — we are rebuilding balance.
We are also learning how to adapt our urban and tourism areas. In the Maspalomas area, the HORIZON NATALIE project applies nature-based solutions to reduce stormwater pollution and improve the environmental quality of the Charca wetland. But the most important aspect is not the technology itself — it is the co-creation process involving local residents, technicians, and schools. Adaptation begins in classrooms and neighbourhoods, not just in offices. The sustainable drainage system (SUDS) being developed there is a pioneering model that will help manage rainwater and reduce flood risks, inspired by similar solutions such as the floodable park in La Laguna, developed under the same project.
In parallel, the ALERTAGRAN system combines artificial intelligence and sensors to anticipate wildfires and floods: the AI-FIRE module detects smoke plumes in real time, and the SiATI system, currently under public tender, will monitor watersheds and reservoirs to strengthen hydrological risk management. Public, open technology at the service of island-wide climate security.
Inland, Gran Canaria has turned fire into a lesson in coexistence. The Gran Canaria Mosaico project promotes active prevention by transforming the landscape to make it more resilient. Cultivated fields act as productive firebreaks, grazed areas reduce fuel loads, and prescribed burns help maintain ecological balance. The Cabildo has also launched a pioneering payment for ecosystem services system to recognise the work of farmers and shepherds who manage the territory. Every grazing area, every orchard, every humid ravine forest becomes a piece of a mosaic landscape that prevents major fires and revitalises the rural economy.
Gran Canaria is not starting from scratch. We are signatories of the European Mission on Climate Adaptation, we participate in the MIP4Adapt programme, and we have applied to Climate-KIC’s Pathways to Resilience initiative to improve the Island’s Climate Adaptation Strategy and strengthen our capacity to respond to emerging risks.
We also work closely with FEDARENE, the European network of Energy Agencies and Regions, contributing to the drafting of strategic documents and to European events on climate adaptation in island and outermost regions. This collaboration has helped position Gran Canaria as an active contributor in the European conversation on resilience and local adaptation policies.
Yet the real driving force of our action is not in Brussels, but in local communities restoring their ravines, farmlands, and forests. Because adaptation is not just a technical matter — it is a political decision. It means rethinking the economy, spatial planning, the energy model, and even our idea of well-being. Every tree planted, every sensor installed, and every cultivated field is also a statement of intent: we want to keep living here — and we want to live better.
In the past month and a half, we have gone one step further by submitting proposals to European calls that reflect this commitment: one focused on coastal restoration, another seeking solutions to coastal flooding, and a third aimed at reducing the impact of heat waves in the midlands, in collaboration with European universities and institutions. Three initiatives sharing a single purpose: to anticipate, cooperate, and learn alongside other territories to accelerate adaptation.
Still, major challenges remain. The first is to build knowledge and training on adaptation. Local technicians, planners, engineers, farmers, and educators all need tools to design and manage more resilient territories. As numerous studies highlight, the lack of specific training is one of the main barriers to advancing adaptation. Awareness is not enough — we must build capacity to act.
The second challenge is to consolidate adaptive urban planning, grounded in data, scientific knowledge, and vulnerability analysis. We need thermal maps, integrated climate information systems, and technical capacity to embed climate considerations into every plan, project, or public service. Europe offers inspiring examples: in Croatia, the REGEA Agency has developed methodologies to integrate adaptation and energy into spatial planning, with cases like Karlovac where green criteria — natural infrastructure, green roofs, permeable soils, sustainable water management — are being applied. This is the path we must follow if we want adaptation to stop being a strategy and become a standard.
On this World Climate Change Day, I want to highlight the crucial role of local institutions. We are the ones confronting heat waves, wildfires, and torrential rains. The ones who restore, educate, and accompany. In Gran Canaria, we know that adaptation is won locally. As long as there are territories willing to act, hope will not be just a word — it will be a plan of action. And that is why — yesterday, today, and tomorrow — local institutions will always stand on the frontline.
This article was originally published in Spanish in Canarias7 on 23 October 2025. The English version was provided by the author for publication on FEDARENE’s website.
