Notes on our Environment
North West Spain – some observations
There are three aspects that are most striking, having lived in Northern Ireland
- The investment in wind power
- The recycling efforts
- The size of the fishing fleet.
The coast from east of Islas Sasargas round to Ria de Muros is very beautiful but it is favourably placed for Atlantic depressions. The same is true of the north coast of Northern Ireland and inland in NI, but the scale of investment in wind turbines in Spain is so much greater than in NI. What do we think – well, the view certainly changes with phalanxes of wind turbines and the most significant impact is that in a sparsely populated area, you are reminded of the urban scale since that amount of wind power is not just for the villages and small towns dotted around. However, once into Ria de Pontevedra and Ria de Vigo the number of wind turbines reduces dramatically but the degree of urbanisation increases. From a visual point of view we prefer the northern parts even with the wind turbines, so come on NI and get building those wind turbines and face down the NIMBYs.
With so many people living in apartments and so many old parts to some of the towns, disposal of waste is somewhat problematic. There are lots of very large bins on the street for people to take out their rubbish. In many cases there are separate bins for glass, paper etc and general waste. However, the supermarkets have not got rid of the plastic bag and we are looked on rather oddly at times when we pull out our hessian shopping bags. So come on Spain and get rid of those plastic bags.
According to our guide book “The Spanish eat more seafood per head of population than any other European nation except Portugal. Half of this is caught by the Galician fleets. Some 90,000 fishermen and 20,000 boats land over a million tonnes of fish and shellfish a year, much of this caught offshore where sardines, tuna, lobster and clams are plentiful. In recent years, the stocks in the seas around Spain have become depleted by overfishing, forcing deep-sea trawlers to travel as far as Canada and Iceland” (Spain, Dorling Kindersley, 1996, 2009). It seems remarkable that this corner of Spain could have such a large fleet and such a level of employment – there are, by contrast only around 12,000 people employed in the whole of the UK fleet and 6000 boats (12,700 people and 6763 boats in 2007 – source: MFA). According to the European Environment Agency, Spain has 19 per cent of the European fishing fleet and the UK only 9 per cent. Now, how is that? There are fish markets in abundance and fish and shellfish are well-represented on restaurant menus (very nice too) but the disparity in fleet sizes given the UK’s history as a fishing nation seems inappropriate, so the questions are, which Ministers gave away our fleet in what EU negotiations and did we get a fair trade-off elsewhere? Why would we be pessimistic about the answers?
Now here’s a strange anomaly – there are all these viveros about and mussels galore being landed. You can eat them in the restaurants, but try buying them in the markets – nigh impossible.
There are three aspects that are most striking, having lived in Northern Ireland
- The investment in wind power
- The recycling efforts
- The size of the fishing fleet.
The coast from east of Islas Sasargas round to Ria de Muros is very beautiful but it is favourably placed for Atlantic depressions. The same is true of the north coast of Northern Ireland and inland in NI, but the scale of investment in wind turbines in Spain is so much greater than in NI. What do we think – well, the view certainly changes with phalanxes of wind turbines and the most significant impact is that in a sparsely populated area, you are reminded of the urban scale since that amount of wind power is not just for the villages and small towns dotted around. However, once into Ria de Pontevedra and Ria de Vigo the number of wind turbines reduces dramatically but the degree of urbanisation increases. From a visual point of view we prefer the northern parts even with the wind turbines, so come on NI and get building those wind turbines and face down the NIMBYs.
With so many people living in apartments and so many old parts to some of the towns, disposal of waste is somewhat problematic. There are lots of very large bins on the street for people to take out their rubbish. In many cases there are separate bins for glass, paper etc and general waste. However, the supermarkets have not got rid of the plastic bag and we are looked on rather oddly at times when we pull out our hessian shopping bags. So come on Spain and get rid of those plastic bags.
According to our guide book “The Spanish eat more seafood per head of population than any other European nation except Portugal. Half of this is caught by the Galician fleets. Some 90,000 fishermen and 20,000 boats land over a million tonnes of fish and shellfish a year, much of this caught offshore where sardines, tuna, lobster and clams are plentiful. In recent years, the stocks in the seas around Spain have become depleted by overfishing, forcing deep-sea trawlers to travel as far as Canada and Iceland” (Spain, Dorling Kindersley, 1996, 2009). It seems remarkable that this corner of Spain could have such a large fleet and such a level of employment – there are, by contrast only around 12,000 people employed in the whole of the UK fleet and 6000 boats (12,700 people and 6763 boats in 2007 – source: MFA). According to the European Environment Agency, Spain has 19 per cent of the European fishing fleet and the UK only 9 per cent. Now, how is that? There are fish markets in abundance and fish and shellfish are well-represented on restaurant menus (very nice too) but the disparity in fleet sizes given the UK’s history as a fishing nation seems inappropriate, so the questions are, which Ministers gave away our fleet in what EU negotiations and did we get a fair trade-off elsewhere? Why would we be pessimistic about the answers?
Now here’s a strange anomaly – there are all these viveros about and mussels galore being landed. You can eat them in the restaurants, but try buying them in the markets – nigh impossible.