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Spain's Red Eléctrica adopts 6,000-sq.-m. stretch of posidonia meadows

Posidonia oceana-juan cuetosRed Eléctrica de España, which operates the country's electricity grid, has agreed to adopt 6,000 square metres (m2) of posidonia meadows, part of the Formentera Council-backed Save Posidonia Project. With their €6,000 donation, Red Eléctrica lend support to an initiative designed to fund posidonia conservation projects.

Tourism secretary Alejandra Ferrer applauded Red Eléctrica for helping the Council on a project originally created by the administration to highlight the year of sustainable tourism. The goal, said Ferrer, is to bring the message of sustainability across to tourists and residents to ensure that future generations can continue enjoying our island.

Sponsored so far: 89,349m2
Red Eléctrica's contribution brings the current total of protected posidonia meadows to over eighty-nine thousand square metres. Donations received from private citizens and businesses to November 1 will go to benefit projects designed to protect posidonia. Visit https://www.saveposidoniaproject.org/es/ to adopt one square metre for one euro.

Representatives of the company say that preserving posidonia is part of a broader commitment to sustainability, fighting climate change and promoting biodiversity. The operators of Spain's power grid and sole administrators of the country's transport network hold up their operations developing and servicing underwater power cables as a model to follow in protecting the plant, which is native to the Mediterranean and immensely important to the local ecosystem.

Together with IMEDEA, Red Eléctrica spearheaded a push to safeguard the underwater plant posidonia oceanica with a cutting-edge strategy to collect and sow posidonia seeds and cuttings in an effort to rehabilitate damaged meadows. The project ran from 2014 to 2016 in the bays of Santa Ponça on Mallorca and Talamanca on Eivissa and ultimately led researchers to determine the technical and financially viability of such efforts.

Company representatives said a partnership with the Govern balear's ministry of environment was behind the recent printing of thirty thousand pamphlets. The educational material is intended to raise awareness about proper anchorage and prevent damage to seagrass meadows or undersea power lines.