The Directorate-General for the Sustainability of the Coast and the Sea provides that in about 6 months the Ministerial Order would be approved which will establish a regime of preventive protection in the area against hydrocarbon prospections (EFE infographics)

The Mar Blava Alliance has made a very positive assessment of the technical meeting held this morning with the Directorate General for the Sustainability of the Coast and the Sea (DGSCM) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and the Environment (MAPAMA) to know the status of the procedure for the declaration of the Cetacean Migration Corridor of the uplifting marine demarcation as a specially protected area of importance for the Mediterranean (ZEPIM) of the Barcelona Convention. The meeting was attended by MAPAMA, the Area Coordinator of the Division for the Protection of the Sea and Prevention of Marine Pollution of the DGSCM, Itziar Martín, and several members of his team and, by the Alliance Mar Blava, the Coordinator of the Technical Secretariat of the Alliance, Carlos Bravo, in addition to the Chairman of the Commission on the Environment of the Balearic Islands, Antoni Alorda, and the Director General of Fisheries of the Environmental Council of the Govern Balear, Joan Mercant. The leaders of the DGSCM, who have very positively appreciated the work of the Alliance as well as the important number of institutional statements and of scientific and NGO entities received in favour of the protection of this Corridor, have explained to the Alliance partners the details of the process being followed.

On the one hand, work is under way on the Ministerial Order which will establish a preventive protection regime throughout the Cetacean Migration Corridor against hydrocarbon prospections and other activities harmful to cetaceans, such as seismic procurement campaigns (acoustic surveys), large producers of underwater noise. According to the DGSCM officials, a public hearing period on the Ministerial Order will be opened in March, or at most April, and is expected to be in force in about six months from now. On the other hand, the procedures for the Barcelona Convention are at a good pace, so that it will be presented in May at the meeting of the Regional Action Centre for Protected Marine Areas (SPA / RAC) of the Convention, in September at the general meeting of focal points, where it is to be adopted from a technical point of view, to be later raised to the plenary of the Convention, at the Conference of the Parties (COP) to be held in Tirana, Albania, in December this year, when the official declaration of this ZEPIM will be made. The Alliance, which will continue to seek institutional, scientific, social and political support for this process, has encouraged those responsible for the DGSCM to continue the good work being done in this regard, in order to increase the protection of the marine fauna of the Mediterranean and to avoid the threat posed by oil prospections to the environment and to the economy of the coastal communities of this sea.