The Formentera Department of Environment and Formentera Office of Tourism are pleased to announce that ImPeFora, a research initiative sponsored by the University of the Balearic Islands, has been named winner of Save Posidonia Project. In 2021, the SPP’s budget totals €112,000.
Apart from studying the impact of emerging pollutants not perceptible to the naked eye like microbeads from cosmetics and cleaning products, ImPeFora researchers will also look at larger plastics which have already begun breaking down and certain components of sun creams.
Environment chief Antonio J. Sanz called the UIB-backed project “a forward step for work on posidonia”. “As the researchers themselves have pointed out”, continued Sanz, “these emerging pollutants can be more harmful once they’ve penetrated directly into cell membranes”. Last October local decision-makers voted to make it harder to sell and use sun creams that are harmful to the marine environment, and urged regional and state governments to support and draft regulations to ban manufacture and marketing of such products.
A total of eleven projects were received in response to the second SPP call for proposals. In its first year, SPP unlocked funding for proposals from the Mediterranean Institute of Advanced Studies (IMEDEA) and the Pine Islands Task Force for Nature-Balearic Ornithological Group and Defence of Nature (GEN-GOB).
A pioneering framework project in the Western Mediterranean, the Save Posidonia Project arose from the desire to promote sustainable tourism and fundraise specifically in support of Posidonia oceanica conservation.
29 July 2021
Communications Department
Consell de Formentera
The Formentera Department of Environment has unveiled a section on the Consell de Formentera website where islanders can get up-to-date details on the energy that is expended by municipal facilities and public lighting. FDE chief Antonio J Sanz described it as a “management and accounting tool to limit unnecessary consumption, cut costs and save energy in order to improve efficiency and make Formentera cleaner, greener and less polluted”.
The Formentera Department of Environment is pleased to report that local schoolchildren collected a grand total of 3,457kg of recyclable glass waste as part of ‘Los Peque Recicladores’ (Lil’ Recyclers), an educational push promoted in association with Ecovidrio. Environment chief Antonio J. Sanz said the initiative was about “educating schoolchildren on the importance of recycling glass containers” and claimed it had been successful in terms of both the volume of glass recycled and the number of pupils who participated.