The Tavira Aquaculture Production Area should be rethought and its size should be halved, suggested the Olhãopesca Producers Organization, as part of the Public Consultation process for this project, recently approved by the Government.
After having criticized, along with other associations in the sector, what it considered an excessive size of the Armona Pilot Area for Aquaculture Production (AAPAA), in relation to Olhão and its negative impacts on local fishing communities and the environment, Olhãopesca it seeks to prevent the area to be implemented in neighboring Tavira from being smaller, “in an initial phase”.
According to this producer organization and the associations of Residents of Ilha da Culatra and Formosa, at this time and six years after its launch, «more than 50 percent of AAPPA is not being exploited», despite the space it occupies is fenced. to any other economic activity, which causes “collateral damage to other business sectors”.
The area where the AAPPA was implemented was used by traditional fishing, as it is located on an artificial reef created there by Ipimar. The fact that it is located less than 3 miles from the coast accentuates this problem, as it is the strip that is used by small fishermen to develop their activity.
“Isn't the area planned to deploy, approximately 5 kilometers long by 3 kilometers wide, not oversized? Is there such a high demand for aquaculture production in the open sea (offshore) that it justifies the investment by the administration in the implementation and delimitation of that space in the open sea?”, they question.
"Olhãopesca considers the area foreseen for the implementation of the APA of Tavira to be too large, and its impact on the fishing sector is proportional, so, at an initial stage, we propose to reduce the assumed area by 50 percent", concludes the OP , in the exhibition he did.
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