Madrid.Central Government policy was under fire yesterday when Friends of the Earth, Ecologists in Action, Greenpeace, SEO/Birdlife and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) were criticising it for showing little sign of change in its agricultural and fishing policies, and in particular for not having created the bluefin tuna marine reserve in Balearic waters.
With the present Socialist government still due to hold power for another 300 days, the conservationists presented a report yesterday entiled The Planet can't wait in which they also lambasted current policy in matters such as the use of nuclear power, transport and waste management.
Short term vision
The report said that the government had failed to successfully detach itself from the fishing industry which depended heavily on subsidies. This short term vision, said the conservationists was storing up trouble for the future as the government were failing to control overfishing and other illegal practices.
The government, said the report, has totally failed to reassess fishing policy in the Mediterranean and has been utterly negligent in its failure to create a reserve for bluefin tuna in Balearic waters. The conservationists said that if the government were to take a longer term vision, they would acknowledge that if the tuna were allowed to breed and grow in peace, the fishing industry would thrive in subsequent years.
In an attempt at fair assessment, the report acknowledged that the government had gone some way to protecting threatened marine birds and sharks, and had enabled the recovery of anchovy stocks off the coast of Cantabria.
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