The Council of Ministers, at the proposal of the Ministry for Ecological Transition, has approved the agreement extending the limits of the Maritime-Terrestrial National Park of the Cabrera Archipelago.
The Council of Ministers, at the proposal of the Ministry for Ecological Transition, has approved the agreement extending the limits of the Maritime-Terrestrial National Park of the Cabrera Archipelago, incorporating 80,779 new hectares of adjacent marine spaces. In this way, the total area of the park goes from the current 10,021 hectares to 90,800, making it the largest marine national park in the western Mediterranean.
This national park, declared in 1991, is located in the south of Mallorca and is made up of a main island, Cabrera Gran and 18 smaller islands, of which the Illa dels Conills is the most important. As a result of the expansion, the marine area of the Network of National Parks goes from 4 to 23% and the Cabrera Archipelago becomes the largest national park in Spain, including terrestrial ones.
After the incorporation of these new 80,779 hectares – all of them marine waters whose management corresponds to the General State Administration – the national park it includes a very good representation of 12 of the 13 marine natural systems that, according to the National Parks Law, must be present in the Network. The only thing missing to represent are the systems associated with underwater gaseous emanations.
The new expanded park will incorporate the open sea into the national park network for the first time. Covering a depth range of more than 2,000 metres, a variety of unique and threatened Mediterranean habitats of particular value are protected, as well as their associated seascapes.
Thus, the extension area provides an important representation of two natural systems not yet present in the National Parks Network (pelagic areas of passage, reproduction or habitual presence of cetaceans or large migratory fish and deep coral banks) and substantially improves the representativeness of two others (steep slopes and escarpments and rocky lowlands). With these natural systems and their associated biodiversity, the National Parks Network will substantially improve its marine richness and representativeness.
Likewise, the expanded area will provide important feeding areas for one of the most representative elements of the fauna of the current national park, such as seabirds, the most endangered group of birdlife globally. Storm petrels, cormorants, seagulls and shearwaters (the Balearic shearwater is the most endangered bird in Europe), species in some cases classified as endangered, will benefit from the protection of fishing resources provided by the park, also avoiding accidental catches in fishing gear.
A MARINE SANCTUARY
And as for cetaceans and large fish species, the area is a real sanctuary, especially important for dolphins, sperm whales, fin whales, sharks, swordfish and bluefin tuna. The area to be expanded is included in the most important breeding area for the latter species in the entire Mediterranean.
The fact that the new expanded park incorporates the open sea into the network of national parks for the first time will require pioneering measures to be taken in the management and conservation of the marine environment. In this sense, as stated in the agreement,the environmental management of marine waters in the area of the expansion is the State’s, so it will be necessary to seek formulas for collaboration with the autonomous community.
Likewise, until a new law is approved to ensure the comprehensive management of the national park, the Autonomous National Parks Agency and the governing body of the Balearic Islands will establish coordination and collaboration mechanisms aimed especially at facilitating the achievement of the objectives of the national park, avoiding impacts from abroad and contributing to functional connectivity and the homogeneous and effective management of the protected territory as a whole.
This decision is an important step and is a sign of the commitment of the Ministry for Ecological Transition to put a stop to one of the serious environmental problems, together with climate change, such as the loss of biodiversity and our natural wealth. The figure of National Parks, which has turned 100 years old, is the highest degree of protection of a natural space but also an open door to the sustainable development of the territory.
CONSENSUAL PROCESSING
In this sense, it should be noted that theenlargement proposal has had a broad social consensus. Thus, it was unanimously supported by the Board of Trustees of the Cabrera Archipelago National Park, and opinion studies carried out in 2017 showed a very wide social acceptance in the Balearic Islands. At the national level, the Congress of Deputies approved by a large majority a Non-Legislative Proposal dated June 20, 2017, which also included this extension. Likewise, the proposal has been submitted to the public information process for two months and has been reported by the Council of the National Parks Network at its meeting last December 2018.
