Gijón, Mar 4 (EFECOM).- The Federation of Fishermen’s Associations of Asturias has announced this Saturday the call for mobilizations in the sector to demand the withdrawal of the Maritime Space Management Plans (POEM) of Spain, which define the areas for develop wind energy, and the resignation of the Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera.
The bosses of the 19 Asturian brotherhoods have decided to support the demonstration on March 11 in front of the Government Delegation in A Coruña and are preparing mobilizations in Asturias, starting on March 18, for which they will ask for support from organizations in the primary sector.
The fishermen reject the installation of parks for the generation of electrical energy through mills installed in the sea in areas of fishing grounds, which they consider to be an “attack” on biodiversity and will end some species and the traditional way of life of thousands of families.
The fishing sector in Asturias affects some 1,500 jobs at sea and generates more than 10,000 jobs on land, whose future is in danger, highlighted the president of the Federation of Brotherhoods, Adolfo Garcia, at the press conference at the who have announced mobilizations.
García has made the possibility of establishing a negotiation with the Government on this issue conditional on the resignation of Minister Teresa Ribera and the withdrawal of the POEMs, approved by the Council of Ministers on February 28.
The president of the Federation has said that, for the approval of these plans, “the Asturian fishing sector was not counted on at all” and they contemplate “unacceptable” measures such as the installation in areas of fishing grounds and in protected areas such as El cañón de Avilés and El Cachucho, has pointed out.
He explained that the electromagnetic radiation and the noise from the mills will cause the disappearance of marine animal life in three miles around the parks, something that he has said has been verified by the Portuguese fishermen who fish in waters close to the mills. .
García has assured that the fishermen of Asturias are not against renewable energies, but they are not going to “consent that the sea be auctioned, nor that it be privatized for the benefit of the electric companies.”
In addition, it has warned that the installation of wind farms in the North Atlantic demarcation, between the Bay of Biscay and the border with Portugal, will cause overfishing in the areas that remain free.
The Council of Ministers has approved the first plans for the planning of the maritime space in Spain which, among other issues, delimit the areas in which offshore wind power may be developed, which, as a whole, add up to 5,000 square kilometers, 0.46% of national waters.
The Government has given the green light to a royal decree approving the Maritime Space Management Plans (POEM) for each of the five Spanish maritime demarcations (North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Strait and Alborán, Levantino-Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands), valid until 2027 and reviewable every six years.