Tenerife

Fifty years ago, aware of the need to protect the natural and cultural heritage of the island in such changing times, the Tenerife Cabildo (Island Government) accepted a commitment to protect and disseminate this natural and cultural legacy that identifies us as the universal common property of the people.

This unceasing task took on a special importance in 1990 with the creation of the Regional Agency for Museums and Centres (OAMC, from its initials in Spanish). The statutes of this body establish that the purposes of the agency include “The presentation, study, analysis, protection, cataloguing enhancement and conservation of the artistic, historic, paleontological, mineralogical, bio-anthropological, phonographic, photographic, cinematographic, ethnographic, cultural, scientific, documental, bibliographic and technical heritage of the island that has a universal scientific and cultural meaning. Said mandate covers the spatial scope of the region, the area of Macaronesia and other geographic areas of interest.”

Throughout these fifty years, we have been working with this objective, managing to create a complete network of museums that focus their efforts on the conservation, investigation and dissemination of the past and present of our islands.

Thus, the Museum of Nature and Man is the brilliant result of merging the Tenerife Museum of Archaeology with the Museum of Natural Sciences and the Canary Island Institute of Bio-Anthropology to offer a modern space to discover and enjoy the natural and archaeological wealth of the Islands.

The Museum of Science and the Cosmos, under the scientific supervision of the Canary Island Institute of Astrophysics, is a constantly developing museum that intends to be a dissemination centre for all kinds of public by promoting a positive attitude towards science.

The Tenerife Museum of History and Anthropology aims to use its collections, exhibitions and activities to offer a broad and rich view of the history and culture of the island of Tenerife. The Museum has two centres in La Laguna, one in the centre of the municipal district and another in Valle de Guerra.

Finally, the “Island of Tenerife” Photography Centre, with offices in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, engages in important work in disseminating the photographic culture, rescuing and conserving the photographic heritage in all its forms, fostering artistic creation and disseminating our social and cultural reality.