The Senate Environment Committee has approved this Tuesday the motion presented in January by the senator for Lanzarote and La Graciosa, Joel Delgado, "for the defense and protection of cetacean populations in the waters of both islands."
The initiative aims to give continuity to the studies that are being carried out within the Life IP Intermares Project "in order to guarantee the environmental protection of the cetacean populations that exist between the east and south of the islands." A project that foresees the extension of the SCI of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura and that was paralyzed when the Government of Mariano Rajoy authorized Repsol's prospecting in the Canary Islands, as denounced then by different institutions, parties and environmental groups.
"This is the path that the technicians have recommended to determine the convenience of expanding the current SCI, since 80% of the marine area around Lanzarote and Fuerteventura is still unknown," Joel Delgado said in his speech, in which he pointed out that "the most important thing is to guarantee that the work that is being developed and that was endorsed at the time by the society itself for the study of cetaceans in the Canary archipelago, SECAC, continues and that gave rise to the first extension in 2011".
Criticizes the "incoherence" of the PSOE
The motion has gone ahead "with the abstention of the PSOE, which at first had announced that it would vote against it", according to the senator, who points out that in his speeches he urged the socialists to reconsider their vote.
Joel Delgado stresses that "the extension of the SCI would be the maximum protection that could be given to the area to achieve the common objective that the two islands have to preserve the marine environment and species", so he highlights "the incoherence of the socialists, who in the islands have positioned themselves in favor of this issue but who, however, in Madrid abstain".
The senator for Lanzarote has concluded by stating that the General Directorate of Sustainability of the Coast and the Sea is analyzing possible new areas to declare and the expansion of existing ones, taking into account those in which there are important populations of marine species such as cetaceans.
