Sixteen years showcasing the seabed of the Tramuntana to promote its protection

The Museu de la Mar in Port de Sóller hosted an event on Friday, 31st July, dedicated to protecting and promoting the marine environment along the coast of the Serra de Tramuntana.

The event, organised by the Yacht Club and the Port Ramassat Platform, featured the opening of an exhibition of photographs from the 16th and final edition of the Port de Sóller underwater photography competition. It also served as a tribute to this initiative, which has helped raise awareness of the underwater world of the Serra de Tramuntana and build public support for the creation of a Marine Reserve of Fisheries Interest in the area. The exhibition will be open to the public throughout August at the Museu de la Mar.

Following the opening, a roundtable discussion took place, focusing on protecting the marine environment and fishery resources along the Serra de Tramuntana coastline. The debate, moderated by Gádor Muntaner, included the Director-General for Fisheries of the Balearic government, Toni Grau; the marine protected areas specialist at Marilles, Núria Salmerón; fisherman Gori Mayol; and the president of the Port de Sóller Yacht Club, Rafel Solivellas.

They discussed the need to protect this valuable marine area and reviewed the progress made since the  reserve was first proposed 18 years ago. This demand had already been highlighted during the public consultation process organised by Port Ramassat last year, which showed that 94.4% of those surveyed were in favour of a marine reserve as a means of protecting the area’s marine resources and ecosystems.

‘After 16 editions, we are bringing the underwater photography contest to a close, satisfied that we have helped raise awareness of the richness and fragility of our seabed in Sóller. Throughout all these years, this initiative has gone hand in hand with a call to action: the need to create the marine reserve, which we have championed through Per s’Illeta Marine Reserve,’ said Solivellas.

Scientific data on the environmental state of the area

During the event, a brief presentation was also given on the available scientific data on the marine environment in the Tramuntana. Studies carried out in the area show that the coastline along this stretch of the Serra de Tramuntana is of high ecological value and reveal that its fish stocks are among the lowest in the Balearic Islands.

For example, the biomass of commercially important fish ranges from 1.4 kg/250 m² in shallow waters to 1.7 kg/250 m² in deep waters, a far cry from the figures recorded in marine reserves such as El Toro ‒ one of the best-performing reserves in the Balearic Islands ‒ where biomass can reach 9.1 kg/250 m² in shallow waters and 12 kg/250 m² in deep waters.