The Minister of the Sea, Marta Villaverde, and the head fisherman of the Pontedeume Fishermen's Guild, Diego Pérez, have signed a collaboration agreement aimed at the recovery of shellfish beds damaged by winter storms. The agreement amounts to approximately 400,000 euros and is co-financed by European FEMPA funds.
The plan will be deployed in the stretch between Puntas Magdalena and Macuca, directly involving the guild in the substrate conditioning tasks on the shellfish beds of Croa Pequena, Beirada Moteis, Croa Grande, Zopazos, Fabal, A Pillada-A Pia, Canle do Barco, and Perejil.
The work will be carried out mainly manually, resorting to the use of boats only on surfaces where handling is more complex.
Among the planned actions, the seeding of 1.8 million units of grooved carpet shell in Croa Pequena, Zopazos, and A Pillada-A Pia stands out, as well as the introduction of fine clam and flat oyster in the Croa Grande bed, although in the latter case the quantities will be conditioned by the availability of seed.
With the aim of safeguarding native shellfish and promoting the recovery of marine habitats in the Pontedeume area, an intervention program will be developed that will combine the removal and control of the Pacific oyster with the transfer to pre-fattening areas of commercial specimens of flat oyster, Pacific oyster, and fine, grooved carpet shell, and Japanese carpet shell. These initiatives will be reinforced with training actions, surveillance work, and sampling.
Coast Guard's 2025 Balance
On the other hand, the technical general secretary of the Ministry of the Sea, Marta Barreiro, has detailed the activity carried out by the Coast Guard service during 2025, a period in which 9,760 inspections were carried out along the entire Galician coast and 2,589 infractions of fishing regulations were detected.
During that period, more than 36,000 illegal or unidentified fishing gear were removed, and nearly 28,000 kilos of fish and shellfish caught irregularly were seized.
In the field of maritime security, the service attended to 140 emergencies, of which 90 were related to search and rescue operations and 50 to actions to combat marine pollution. For these interventions, 51 aerial operations were activated with the Pesca 1 and Pesca 2 helicopters, in addition to 39 maritime devices using ships and patrol boats.