Canaries Push For Whales & Dolphin Mega Reserve

Created by doina. Last modified on 2005-10-17 10:42:11
Topic: Environment
Countries: Azores, Canary Islands, Cape Verdes, Madeira, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal

The regional government of the Canary Islands is currently negotiating for a multinational accord to provide a greater degree of protection to marine mammals over a huge area of the Atlantic.

If the initiative is successful one of the world’s richest and most diverse marine zones, known as Macaronesia, across which are scattered the four archipelagos of the Canaries, Azores, Madeira and Cape Verde, will boast a series of sanctuary-type zones where cetaceans will be under less threat than at present.

The terms of the multilateral accord are still being drafted, but once the document is drawn up it is hoped representatives of six countries – Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal and Cape Verde – will sign up and a vast sweep of ocean, from the Azores to the shores of Senegal, will be made safe for cetaceans.

Up to 27 resident and migratory species have been recorded in Macaronesian waters. Sperm whales are frequently spotted, often accompanied by groups of short-finned pilot whales. Blue, humpback, fin, Minke and Sei whales are also numerous, as are a great number of dolphin species.

But cetaceans are not the only creatures that will benefit from extended protection. Special mention must go to the zone’s colonies of monk seals, of which there are several here in the Canaries.

Now more than ever marine life is under pressure and nowhere more so than in this part of the Atlantic where threats include everything from military manoeuvres to entrapment in drift nets, collisions with shipping and chemical and acoustic pollution, to name but a few.

The director of the regional government’s natural environment department, Juan Carlos Moreno, has admitted the proposed accord will not signify, much less guarantee, the end of threats to cetacean survival in the zone, but he highlighted the importance of bringing together so many countries in the name of their protection. “At least the governments of these countries will have pledged themselves to put in place the means to avoid the most visible threats and will feel obliged to fulfill their promises,” he said.

From The Tenerife News

http://www.tenerifenews.com/