Formentera introduces patrol of anchoring boats

Formentera Council chief Jaume Ferrer and environment secretary Daisee Aguilera joined Aguilera's opposite number for the Govern balear in introducing the now two-week-old service to monitor anchorage on posidonia meadows.

Ferrer welcomed Vicenç Vidal's choice of Formentera to unveil the service, namely, he said, “because Formentera has been a pioneer in posidonia protection. For Formenterencs it's a top priority”. The CiF chairman highlighted the formal complaint the Council brought regarding the service's holdup, while adding that he understood administrative processes “can often take longer than we'd like”. Ferrer trumpeted the understanding his administration shares with its Palma counterparts, and pointed to a common objective of granting Formentera control of its entire coastline in the two or three next years. “We've got to do everything we can to insure surveillance and control of the watercraft that anchor on our coasts,” he said, and reiterated that the priority was safeguarding Formentera's sea floor and posidonia.

As Vidal pointed out, since the service's rollout patrol boats have already logged 546 relocations of boats anchored on seagrass meadows and 2,230 cases of outreach. Under the new scheme, 10 boats across the Balearics track large vessels anchoring along areas of sandy coastline. Focussing on ships 15 to 110 metres (m) long, the patrols, which communicate with crews via channel 68 about posidonia and proper anchorage, also assist watercraft in relocating from posidonia meadows to suitable anchorage spots. Forty-five thousand informative brochures have been drawn up in collaboration with Red Eléctrica de España (REE) as part of the effort. Six patrol boats will be stationed in the Pityuses until the end of September. For the first time this year, the area of surveillance will stretch from cala Saona to Es Caló with everything in between including Ses Illetes park. Three boats patrol the waters of Mallorca and one is posted at Menorca.