Oviedo (EFE).- The seaweed extraction campaign of the ocle genus will begin in Asturias next Monday, July 3, and will last until September 29, with a total of 4,600 tons authorized by the Ministry of Rural Environment and Territorial Cohesion.
The Ministry has published this Friday in the Official Gazette of the Principality of Asturias the resolution approving the management plans for the extraction of “Gelidium” (ocle) in the central and eastern areas.
For the central zone, the extraction of 3,300 tons is authorized by a maximum of twenty vessels, while the activity in the eastern zone will be limited to nine vessels for 1,300 tons.
In its resolution, the council stresses that one of the main objectives of the management plans is to prevent ocle extraction from having “a negative impact on fishing resources, diminishing the natural regeneration capacity of ocle fields in the short and long term and compromise the recovery capacity of kelp forests”.
Thus, the plans establish a series of limitations and closures, at the same time that it dictates a series of regulations to avoid extraction in sensitive areas in order to favor the recovery of the fields.
environmental criticism
However, the Ecologist Coordinator of Asturias has regretted that “uncontrolled” extraction is authorized and has warned that the decrease in marine forest biomass on the coastal platform caused by climate change “is aggravated by the uprooting of algae in so much so that it is not a selective method”.
The conservation organization, which had asked to delay the start of the campaign to August 1, has denounced in a statement that the extraction of algae is being carried out “without carrying out prior studies, without the planning of gradual exploitation areas under strict follow-up controls on the negative impacts that are being caused and without paying attention to the maintenance capacity or the regeneration of the algae fields”.
In addition, the coordinator has lamented the absence of “measures for the effective and real control of starting quotas.”
In this regard, he has advocated establishing “a weight control on the road and a real control of the Gelidium purchased by the factories.” EFE