Cruising To Destruction: Posidonia

Nice work if you can get it for electricity companies. They are lining up to get the gig to supply boats coming into port, for which you can read primarily cruise ships coming into Palma. It's all part of a drive by the European Union to reduce emissions from ships, by which engines would be switched off and energy would be transmitted from land.

The environmental harm caused by cruise ships is something to which I have previously referred. With an increase in the number of ships comes the potential for greater damage, and, as cruising is increasing across the Mediterranean, the EU has moved to try and do something about it.

Cruising has been described as the "bad boy of travel". A large liner is said to emit higher levels of carbon dioxide than a large, long-haul airplane, though it is commonly argued that ships (of all types) and planes emit the same levels in relative terms. There are, though, other pollutants from a ship's fuel - sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide.

All forms of transport bring with them costs and benefits. In the case of cruising the environmental costs have been placed at seven times greater than the economic benefits, assuming one accepts that there really are economic benefits, and I have said before that Palma and Mallorca do not benefit as much as is made out.

The equation between environmental costs and economic benefits was one contained in a significant study, the Scarfe Report, into the impact of cruise ships on Victoria in British Columbia. The study, issued earlier this year, is a comprehensive examination of the effects of cruising on a specific community and economy. Scarfe identified, among other things, the costs to health and property values and the costs of marine discharges. The reference in the study to the seven times higher environmental costs wasn't, however, one that related to Canadian experience; it was to a Mediterranean one, that of the port of Dubrovnik in Croatia.

Citing the Mediterranean has special significance, as shipping has a major effect on marine species that, apart from waters around southern Australia, are only found in the Med - posidonia.

The most evident sign of the existence of posidonia oceanica is in the form of the kiwi fruit-shaped balls that are washed up onto Mallorca's beaches. The sea grass and underwater meadows it forms around the Balearics are prolific. Off Ibiza, what is reckoned to be the largest and oldest meadow anywhere was discovered in 2006.

The posidonia is important for all sorts of reasons, one of them being that it protects coastlines from erosion, another that it, ironically enough given ships' emissions, helps to mitigate the effects of CO2. The importance attached to posidonia explains the number of studies that are conducted into its destruction, which, given that it takes long to grow, is, in some instances, close to irreversible.

Official attitudes towards posidonia are contradictory, to say the least. While there is a recognition of its vital role in the local ecology, certain projects, e.g. the extension of the port of Ibiza, have been given the green light despite the official report (in the case of Ibiza) acknowledging the fact that it would harm posidonia meadows. Greenpeace, in a submission to the European Commission in 2009, condemned port infrastructure projects around the Balearics and also condemned Spain for a failure to comply with European law.

Posidonia is affected by all sorts of things. Oil exploration off the Balearics is the latest to be added to the list of destructive influences. The electricity cable from the mainland is another. But shipping is one of the more destructive, and it is so in different ways, such as through anchoring and discharges. A report from 1999 in respect of posidonia around Port-Cros in southern France went so far as to recommend a moratorium on all anchoring for a minimum of five years to allow the sea grass to at least begin to recover from destruction.

The bay of Palma is full of posidonia, as is the bay of Alcúdia into which cruise ships might one day enter. The investment that has been poured into both Palma and Alcúdia has been that of chasing the cruise-ship shilling. But at what cost? Supplying electricity to ships is a recognition that there is a cost, one borne by the environment. There are others, and one might argue that the investment would have been better spent elsewhere. But, for now, electricity is to come to the rescue, and how will they provide for it?

You know, I've always thought that those posidonia kiwi-fruit balls might burn quite nicely.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.