Out of a recent UN conference on the protection of the sea comes the news that Portugal has announced the creation of a new 38,000 square-mile marine protected area.
Established around the Gorringe seamount, technically Portugal’s tallest mountain, the decision will take the nation’s total protected territorial waters to 27%, making the small Iberian country the continent leader in protected ocean waters.
The announcement was made by the nation’s environment minister Maria da Graca Carvalho at the 3rd UN Oceans Conference in Nice. The conference focuses on implementing strategies and methods to achieve the goals set out in the 2023 High Seas Treaty, which has so far been ratified by 51 nations—9 short of entering legal force.
“In terms of marine protection we are the most advanced country in the world with our characteristics combining continental and insular territory. Certainly the leader in Europe,” Carvalho said.
The Gorringe Ridge is located about 130 miles (210 km) west of Portugal, between the Azores and the Strait of Gibraltar. It is notable for an enormous diversity of sea life, particularly “soft corals,” or gorgonians, and deep-sea sponges, which inhabit some 1,100 reefs along the ridge.
850 species have been recorded living a there by the charity Oceana, which has been lobbying for the site’s protection for years.
In a statement following a 2012 dive mission to the seamount, Oceana called the undersea ecosystem “stunning.”
“The seamounts are visited by great pelagic species, such as whales, dolphins, and swordfish,” the statement read.
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“The peaks are covered by algae forests, particularly kelp. Large schools of amberjack, horse mackerel, and barracuda concentrate above the highest peaks, and detritic bottoms, covered in the remains of coral, bryozoans, and mollusks, abound in deeper areas, are inhabited by dragon fish, fan corals, pink frogmouths, and bird’s nest sponges.”
Emanuel Gonçalves, chief scientist at Oceano Azul Foundation, a separate nonprofit that mapped the area with the Portuguese navy, told Reuters that the total protected area would be around 100,000 square kilometers, enough to “connect seamounts, abyssal plains, and open ocean, and create a safe haven to highly mobile and migratory species, and deep sea habitats”.
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“It will provide a fertile nursery and feeding ground for turtles, sharks, marine mammals, sea birds and tunas, expand or restore kelp and coral forests and create a sanctuary for the unique breeding aggregation of torpedo rays,” he said.
The decision also follows on from an announcement last year that Portugal intended to protect an area of water around the Azores archipelago the size of Virginia and Georgia combined.