Ponta Delgada, Portugal, July 29, 2024 (Lusa) - The Azores regional government said on Monday that, with the approval of the National Maritime Spatial Plan for the Azores, ‘the door is not ajar to mining activity’ in the region's sea.
On Friday, the cabinet approved a resolution that ‘adopts the National Maritime Spatial Planning Situation Plan for the Azores subdivision (PSOEM-Açores)’.
In a press release, the Azorean Regional Secretariat for the Sea and Fisheries, headed by Mário Rui Pinho, clarified ‘that the door is not ajar to mining activity in the sea around the Azores, contrary to what some people are trying to make out’.
‘The prospecting, research and exploitation of metallic minerals are activities that are legally provided for in Portuguese and European Union legislation within the legal framework of maritime spatial planning and legislation on the development and exploitation of geological resources and Environmental Impact Assessment,’ he added.
According to the note, these activities should be considered in the Situation Plan, ‘as is the case with other uses and activities legally provided for, avoiding a legal vacuum on this activity’.
The Regional Secretariat also said that their inclusion in the document ‘is not synonymous with it being foreseen, as indeed it was not’.
‘Precisely because of the current lack of knowledge about it, namely the significance of the environmental impacts involved, and in a precautionary approach, it was considered that the conditions for the delimitation of potential areas for its development were not met, thus obliging any intention to be subject to the Affectation Plan procedure,’ he said.
The Regional Secretariat for the Sea and Fisheries of the Azores noted that about prospecting, research and exploration of metallic mineral resources, ‘it was agreed that no potential situation would be defined by the entities responsible for drawing up the Situation Plan for the subdivisions of the Mainland, the Extended Continental Shelf, Madeira and the Azores’.
‘The Azores regional government agrees with the preventive approach to metallic minerals considering the high risk of deep sea mining for the good environmental state of the marine environment and the little knowledge that exists in this regard, and there is even an existing governmental and political understanding in the Autonomous Region of the Azores, with unanimous approval of documentation that recommends a moratorium on seabed mining until 2050, specifically Resolution of the Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region of the Azores No. 23/2023/A, of 23 May,’ it says.
It continues: ‘The document, in particular the ‘SWOT’ analysis that is made concerning this activity, lists the lack of scientific knowledge as one of the main associated weaknesses.’
The Azores' government also justifies that ‘the enormous gaps in scientific knowledge, especially concerning the impact of sediment plumes resulting from activities on the seabed, and the many uncertainties about the ocean's dynamics call not only for a precautionary approach, but above all for the search for more sustainable alternatives that strengthen the ocean's resilience’.
The note also emphasised that ‘the disagreements between the regional government and central government bodies (as well as with the Constitutional Court) on this matter are well known and were reflected in the delay in approving the PSOEM-Azores’.
ASR/ADB // ADB.
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