Portugal and Spain agreed to establish a cooperation mechanism in the management of marine protected areas (MPA), the Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho, announced this Saturday.
“Cooperation with Spain in the management of protected marine areas, cooperation on issues such as technical resources and infrastructure was agreed”, said Maria da Graça Carvalho during a closing event of the scientific expedition that for three weeks surveyed the biodiversity of the Gorringe bank , the largest underwater mountain in Portugal.
The minister added that the agreement on AMP will be registered as an annex to the conclusions of the next Iberian summit, scheduled for October, in Portugal.
The understanding was reached during a meeting between Maria da Graça Carvalho and her Spanish counterpart, Teresa Ribera, on Friday in Aranjuez, in the Madrid region, before opening an event dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Albufeira Convention, the treaty between the two countries that regulate the management of international rivers in the Iberian Peninsula.
Government wants “more effective protection” for the Gorringe bank
In the closing session of the expedition, Maria da Graça Carvalho said that the government intends to propose for the Gorringe bank, considered an oceanic oasis of biodiversity, a more robust conservation status than that of a protected area within the framework of the European Natura 2000 network that underwater mountain has since 2015.
“Preliminary information [recolhidas pela expedição] leave no doubt that we cannot spare any effort to achieve effective protection” for the Gorringe bank, said the minister, adding that the work of the expedition – which brought together around 30 scientists from 14 research centers on board the former cod boat Santa Maria Manuela investigation from Portugal, Spain, the United States and Australia – “provides more tools to support political decision-making”.
Maria da Graça Carvalho also recognized Portugal’s “delay” and “non-compliance” in the chapter on regulating the management of protected areas created by legislative acts, but without real implementation.
“We have to have 61 management plans for protected areas in the Natura network and we don’t have any and we have been paying fines for that for a few years now,” said the minister, adding, without mentioning a timetable, that work is being done for the publication of ordinances that regulate these areas.
“It is not enough to classify areas as protected, it is necessary to have effective management plans for this protection status”, he said.
The scientific campaign on the Gorringe bank – promoted by the Oceano Azul Foundation, Lisbon Oceanarium, Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests (ICNF) and the Portuguese Navy – was intended to be an effort to boost Portugal’s path towards fulfilling the European strategy of achieving that by 2030 at least 30% of the ocean will be protected, with at least 10% with strict protection and will produce a scientific report, scheduled for publication in the first quarter of 2025, to support the management of that area.
Located around 130 nautical miles (around 240 kilometers) southwest of Cape S. Vicente, in the Algarve, the Gorringe bank, which rises from 5,000 meters deep to around 30 meters above the surface of the Atlantic, It was originally charted in 1875 by Henry Gorringe, commander of the United States Navy, and is an underwater mountain range about 180 kilometers long and 60 kilometers wide.
