Oceana is fighting proposed oil and gas seismic projects between Catalonia and the Balearic Islands that it says will “harm” more than 17 million marine hectares, 82 protected areas and almost 200 protected or regulated species.
Oil company Spectrum plans to scan 10 million marine hectares at depths of between 200 and 3,000m using “airguns”. It will emit sounds of more than 200 decibels every few seconds, 24 hours a day, for 22 weeks, affecting several species including cetaceans, sea turtles, fish, molluscs, crustaceans and others.
Ricardo Aguilar, director, research, Oceana Europe, said: “Not only is it against the law, but it will also affect a huge area with very important and protected ecosystems. It will also harm economies that depend on the resources that will be damaged, like fishing and tourism, fiving that many species will be driven away by the racket of the seismic surveys.”
Similar proposals are generating much controversy in other parts of the world. The US Department of Interior reported that, if similar studies were carried out in the Atlantic waters belonging to that country, one cetacean would be damaged per 6km², and many hundreds of thousands would be affected in terms of behaviour, breeding and feeding habits.
Fishermen in the area would also be affected. Research on the impact of seismic surveys on fishing in the North Atlantic showed that some commercial species were affected even more than 30km away, causing losses in the catches of fishermen that could be greater than 70-80%.
Oceana is now calling on the government to prevent the seismic work.
