In 2011, the NGO Oceana discovered in one of its expeditions a large deep coral reef on the Cabliers bank, a geological formation of seamounts located in the Alboran Sea. A unique place in the Mediterranean because no other place of similar dimensions is known (it extends for about 25 kilometers in length), it is home to a large number of species, and it is alive and growing. But this living fossil – it is estimated that it has been in the making for 400,000 years – was not protected, until this Friday the Mediterranean countries agreed to ban all types of bottom fishing in 2024, including trawling nets, in a planned area of about 400 square kilometers around it. The decision, which will prevent the deterioration of the fragile environment, was taken at the annual meeting of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM). The mission of this United Nations entity, of which 22 countries on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea are part, together with the European Union, is to guarantee the conservation and sustainable use of living marine resources.
The most surprising thing about Cabliers, which extends through the waters of Morocco, Spain and Algeria, is that “it has remained almost unchanged over time, it is almost pristine,” explains Claudio Lo Iacono, marine geologist at the Institute of Marine Sciences. of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and expert in the underwater enclave. In the two expeditions they have carried out, one in 2015 and another last year, in which they installed sensors, “we have not found a single piece of plastic, and that is something very strange, because a bottle, remains of nets, always appear. “You are never the first to arrive,” he says ironically.
The remoteness of Cabliers from the coast – eight hours from Cabo de Gata and about four or five from Morocco – has allowed the area to remain quite isolated and has avoided the pollution and overexploitation that the Mediterranean suffers from. Ships do not usually reach there, they travel further north, and it is not the ideal environment for ships that operate with trawl nets, which damage the seabed, because the geology of the environment is complicated and the meshes would get caught.
This is how this remote enclave has been preserved, producing biomass in such quantities that it influences and enriches the surrounding areas. “Cabliers is a natural breeding ground for species of great commercial value, lobster, sea bream and redfish,” says Lo Iacono. The great variety of life is displayed before the lens of the scientists’ cameras, who investigate the area with unmanned robots. “There is a world of starfish, small fish and other organisms,” he describes. The two species that cement this building are two deep corals, the Madrepora oculata and the Lophelia pertursa. They build complex structures, with many delicate white branches, that resemble porcelain. “When these types of systems appear it is as if you found an oasis in the desert, with that life suddenly, but in this case at the bottom of the sea, which at that depth is very monotonous,” indicates the scientist.
It is not the only living colony of deep corals in the Mediterranean, there are others, but dispersed and not in that quantity. “Cabliers is a mountain that looks like a large snake, similar to the Great Wall of China,” says Lo Iacono. It is in the upper part where corals grow, because they receive a greater amount of organic matter. They are found at around 300 or 400 meters, although they can survive at greater depths. “This favors their study, it is not the same if they were at 2,000 meters,” he explains. Cold water corals differ from tropical ones both in their color – the deep ones are usually monochromatic – and in their ecology. The tropical ones live in symbiosis with an algae, which gives them the energy to live and which needs light to carry out photosynthesis.
Information is the first tool against climate change. Subscribe to it.
Subscribe
Helena Álvarez, Oceana biologist, and present at the negotiations that were closed this afternoon, is very satisfied with the protection, which was achieved after years of requests. Perhaps, she points out, the forgetting of these corals is because people only know the shallowest ones, the tropical ones. “But they are just as necessary, because of the biodiversity they generate and the species that reproduce and feed there, they form like a large forest, which grows very slowly,” she says.
Álvarez points to the need to preserve more ecosystems of this type, because the evolution of fishing in the future is not known. “We are seeing how fishing is reduced in the most superficial levels and fishermen are forced to go deeper, in addition to the fact that with climate change these funds can become a climatic refuge for species,” he argues. The fisheries commission will carry out another international scientific expedition to define the area to permanently close.
The deputy vice president of Oceana in Europe, Vera Coelho, states in a statement that this is “a victory for marine ecosystems, and constitutes an example that Mediterranean countries should follow to meet their conservation objectives and rebuild their fish populations.” . Oceana “especially” praises the work carried out by the European Commission, Morocco and Algeria.
At the same meeting, the Mediterranean countries have also agreed to adopt measures that allow them to act against members that do not implement restrictions against trawlers that fish illegally in areas prohibited for this type of fishing gear. The general fisheries commission will now implement a system in which it will be the members who must demonstrate that they carry out controls on their fleet and that they communicate adequately about what they fish. “This is critical to ending years of inaction and building a culture of compliance,” the Oceana statement said.
You can follow CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT in Facebook and xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#great #Cabliers #reef #unique #living #fossil #Mediterranean #protected #fishing