Boat users in Mallorca increasingly aware of anchoring rules

Posidonia sea grass surveillance in the Balearics

The posidonia surveillance service has been in existence for five years. | Govern de les Illes Balears

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma07/10/2021 13:08

Over the summer, the Balearic government's posidonia surveillance service had dealings with 144,513 boats anchored in Balearic waters. Of these, just 5,612 were told to move. The environment minister, Miquel Mir, says that 4.7% was a "remarkably low figure".

There was a total of seventy sanctions procedures, 62 initiated by environment agents and eight by the Guardia Civil.

The service began on May 15 in Formentera and Ibiza and on June 1 in Minorca and Mallorca. It was operational until September 30, the aim - as in all of the five years since it was started - having been conservation and protection of the seabed, especially posidonia meadows. It is an offence to anchor on this sea grass.

The minister adds that the good figures this summer show that the service is "increasingly efficient and has greater capacity to act". The fact that the percentage of boats which have to move is getting lower each year, at a time when there are more boats, suggests that there is greater awareness of the regulations. One of the roles of the service is to inform boat users about the regulations.

In Formentera, a "hotspot" for potentially damaging anchoring, nine per cent of boats had to move in 2019. This was down to just 1.2% over the summer.