The Diplomat
Verdemar-Ecologists in Action yesterday indicated that it will denounce in the European Union the intended extension of the project that the British Ministry of Defence has presented to the Development and Planning Commission to extend the South Mole dock in Gibraltar, in the waters of the Special Area of Conservation, to install an aircraft carrier anchorage.
According to what Verdemar explained to Europa Press, they have been cataloguing limpets on the coast of Gibraltar and have “verified that there is a colony of Patella ferruginea on the rocks of the coastline where the extension is to be carried out”.
In this regard, they recalled that the ferruginous limpet (Patella ferruginea) is a species endemic to the Mediterranean, whose populations are currently so depleted that it is internationally listed as ‘Endangered’. Its distribution has been practically reduced to the North African coast, having almost disappeared from the European coasts.
Thus, they indicated that “precisely Gibraltar and the coasts of the Campo de Gibraltar are one of the last strongholds of this species, this population being the only breeding population (or potentially breeding) in the entire Iberian Peninsula”.
