Santiago de Compostela, (EFE).- Several hundred barnacles have demanded in Santiago de Compostela “respect” for the areas where this shellfish is found, authentic “sanctuaries” for the species, compared to the extraction of the cheek, the breeding of the mussel.
In a new episode of the so-called conflict of the cheek, which pits the barnacle extractors against the bateeiros, they have held a demonstration in front of the headquarters of the Xunta de Galicia, in San Caetano, where last Thursday a mobilization of the mussel sector led to in a police charge with two arrests and several injured.
The president of the Federation of Brotherhoods of Galicia, José Antonio Pérez Sieira, who defends the barnacles, has argued that establishing “sanctuaries” for the barnacle is essential for the sector to survive and that it is less than 16% of the Galician coast, while “without those stones the bateeiro sector will continue to live”.
The protest of the barnacles has been “peaceful”, although under heavy surveillance with up to six Police vans and numerous agents, and has been carried out “against the political bungling in the sea sector”, since last month they opened areas to the cheek extraction that they believe should be reserved for the barnacle.
Although the Consellería do Mar finally announced the cancellation of the last openings of cheek extraction areas due to a technical error in the processing, the conflict has intensified.
Sieira, reading a manifesto during the protest, has demanded “reliable and independent studies” on the consequences of extracting mussel spawn from rocks where barnacles also breed.
“We ask for respect and we demonstrate against lack of control and wrongdoing,” he explained, while calling for “legal security” and “equality in the control of resource extraction” for the two parties in conflict in this conflict, which they must have “mutual respect”, he concluded.