ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
Unfortunately the park suffers a series of environmental impacts which are:
Illegal trawling
Trawling is one of the most striking arts that exist, as they produce destruction in almost all types of bottom on which they drag.The trawl fishery is not selective, discarding in general more than 60% of what is extracted.
That is why its activity is prohibited at depths of less than 50 meters and especially prohibited on Posidonia meadows.
Illegal dredging
Illegal extraction of sand is another problem for posidonia grasslands.
The sand is extracted for regeneration of beaches, for greenhouses or construction.
To save costs, the extraction is not done at the required depths or with the correct methods, getting to extract sand on the meadows.
Discharges (dirty water, diffuse contamination by fertilizers, chemical plants, thermal ...)
Discharges of dirty water from coastal populations are often only
treated by decanting solids. Therefore, the discharged waters are rich in organic matter and dissolved nutrients, and as explained before, they degrade the environment through a process of eutrophication. In addition, these waters are sweet, which can also damage coastal vegetation.
Aquaculture
The remains of food and droppings of the fish fattened in cages are discharges rich in organic matter, nitrogen and phosphorus, similar to that of the dirty waters of the coastal populations. The shadow of the cages can also affect the bottom plants and algae. The impact of aquaculture cages on seagrass beds can be reduced by locating aquaculture farms in open water, away from sensitive ecosystems, improving feed efficiency and installing green filters around farms (eg algae cultures). ). The administration forces these farms to continuously monitor the surroundings of the cages.
Coastal constructions
The construction of buildings, roads and promenades, often cut off the sand supply of the beaches, initiating their erosion and that of the seagrass beds. We try to regenerate the beaches by adding sand, but if the sediments are too thin, they produce turbidity, and can accelerate the decline of the meadows. When these are lost, the erosion of the beach becomes more acute, in a well-known vicious circle. The construction of harbors, breakwaters and other land reclaimed from the sea, in addition to destroying ecosystems by direct burial and by the turbidity generated by the work, often also permanently alter coastal currents, producing erosion in some places, and burial in others.
Invasive algae
The increase in communications, the opening of the Suez Canal and global warming have accelerated the arrival of exotic species in the Mediterranean, a process that also takes place in the rest of the planet.
On the Mediterranean coast, two tropical algae of the genus Caulerpa have invasive behavior (Caulerpa taxifolia and Caulerpa racemosa).
Intensive free anchoring
When a ship launches the anchor to anchor on a Posidonia meadow, it can start many plant beams during the maneuver, and also when lifting anchors.
If the anchor claws, or when the wind rolls, causing the boat to rotate around the anchor, the chain crawls along the bottom, tearing off more beams.
A small boat does not do a very big damage, but when many
boats do the same in a cove, small damages accumulate.
To address this problem, a total of 20 buoys were installed in the Natural Park in 2003 as ecological or low-impact moorings in various areas of the park: 9 in Benidorm Island, 2 in Mitjana, 1 in Punta Bombarda and 8 in the Cove of the Mine.