Some parts of the region have been cleared of trees to create meadows for agriculture, but the dense forests still dominate the Galician landscape.
Many of the trees can survive with their leaves through the winter because the temperatures rarely go below freezing. In addition, the rainy fall and winter months give the trees plenty of moisture in the soil, which they then store for the warm summer months, when it hardly rains at all.
As previously mentioned, eucalyptus trees are wreaking havoc on native tree species in some parts of Galicia. Eucalyptus trees were originally introduced to the region for the production of paper, and now there are giant farms of them to specifically harvest their pulp to make paper. The eucalyptus trees do not present an existential threat to the survival of Galician forests, but they have made the forests more vulnerable to the negative effects of weather and humans.
