Oceana, the international ocean protection organisation, has warned that nearly 12 of the 26m hectares of Spanish Mediterranean waters are under threat from oil and gas exploration.
The organisation said that this accounts for nearly 12 of the 26m hectares, or 45%, of Spanish Mediterranean waters, if all projects pending administrative authorisation are approved.
Xavier Pastor, executive director of Oceana in Europe, said: “We must not wait for a spill to occur to start regretting the damage that has been done.”
He pointed out that the projects affect fishing grounds and migratory routes of cetaceans, tuna and sharks and that as soon as the seismic surveys commence “thousands or organisms will be seriously affected.”
The affected areas include those in Andalusia, the Alboran Sea and Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands, where seismic acquisition projects and initial drilling would cover an area of around 11m hectares if overlapping areas are excluded.
Oceana pointed out that a further worry is that the new projects are located near the boundary of the Exclusive Economic Zone and a future spill could reach watesr belonging to other countries. One example of this is the Nordeste Project in the Gulf of Lyon.
