The offshore wind management plan (POEM), which received the green light from the Government last week, has raised the fishing sector against it. Some two hundred people have gathered this Saturday in A Coruña, grouped in the coordinator “Eólica, así non”, to demand the withdrawal of the plan of the ministry that depends on Teresa Ribera, which foresees that more than half of the space reserved for this energy is located on the Galician coast.
With banners with messages such as “In defense of artisanal fishing”, “Respect for seafarers”, “You don’t play with fishing” or “In Madrid there is also wind”, social entities have demonstrated in front of the headquarters of the Government Delegation against the plans of the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge.
Despite the fact that the POEMs reserve a limited space for offshore wind, with 19 polygons in an area that represents 0.46% of the maritime space, In the North Atlantic area, the installation of eight parks is planned..
The national spokesperson of the BNG, Ana Pontón, has participated in the concentration, who has supported the demands of the fishing sector and has criticized that “almost half of offshore wind power” of the whole of the Spanish State settles on the Galician coasts.
“It’s going to be a fatal blow for fishing”has declared the nationalist, who has also highlighted the fishing sector as “one of the backbones” of the economy in Galicia, which cannot be “at risk” solely for the “interests of the electricity lobby”.
According to data from a study carried out by the University of Santiago, fishing represents 2% of Galicia’s GDP and entails more than 31,000 jobs. In addition, taking into account the sea-industry sector as a whole, it reaches 5% of GDP, more than 12,000 million euros in turnover and some 64,000 direct jobs.
Pontón has declared that the central government wants to “turn Galicia into an energy colony of Madrid” and in light of this has defended that the Galician coast “is not for sale” and that It’s not the place for utilities to “keep cashing in.” “From the BNG what we demand, just as the fishing sector and environmental groups demand, is that the POEM be withdrawn and that intention that the central government has, with the complicity of the Xunta de Galicia -PSOE and PP-, to continue benefiting the electric companies regardless of the fact that this is a fatal blow to the fishing sector”, the spokeswoman said. Finally, she has warned that the Galician continental shelf “is very small”, which does not allow “coexistence between fishing and the offshore wind sector”.
Javier Costas, senior patron of the Brotherhood of Cangas do Morrazo (Pontevedra), has spoken in the same sense. According to him, unlike other countries such as Scotland or Ireland, the Galician platform is “very small” and the installation of wind farms It will cause “great damage” for the traditional fishing sector. “It’s no use being sold to us, this is going to regenerate many jobs when we are going to load many more, related to coastal fishing,” Costas pointed out.
In turn, Ricardo Villar, chief skipper of Cedeira (A Coruña), has criticized that the wind farms that are planned to be installed are located in “historic fishing grounds” of the majority of the Galician fleet. all of it “without asking, without studies and without knowing how it will affect fishing”. “The only information we have is from other parks that were installed in Portugal and from what our fellow fishermen there tell us, around the wind farms there is no life, there is no fishing,” she warned.
Basilio Otero, patron saint of Burela (Lugo) and president of the Platform in Defense of Fisheries and Marine Ecosystems, has pointed out that fishing “fixes population” and It also provides “healthy food”For this reason, it has requested the withdrawal of the POEM and the resignation of the Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera. “We ask for dialogue, because we have broken bridges with this Ministry. They don’t see us or listen to us,” she pointed out.
During the concentration, representatives of the platforms have put under the door of the Government Delegation a letter against the POEM, in which demand their withdrawal and that both fishing activity and marine ecosystems be respected.
