The State Gazette (BOE) published a bulletin this week legally restricting maritime traffic on the Mar Menor for the purpose of environmental protection and recovery.

Royal Decree 118/2024, of January 30, published this week, establishes limitations on maritime navigation for the protection and recovery for the recognition of legal personality of the Mar Menor lagoon and its basin, articulating a new legal system for the protection of this important marine ecosystem, to which it attributes legal personality and recognises a series of rights, including protection and conservation.

The right to protection attributed to the Mar Menor “implies limiting, stopping and not authorising those activities that pose a risk or damage to the ecosystem.” For its part, the right to conservation “requires actions to preserve terrestrial and marine species and habitats and the management of associated protected natural spaces.” These rights have their correlation in the imposition on public administrations of a series of obligations, provided for in article 7 of Law 19/2022, of September 30, which includes the obligation to “immediately restrict those activities that may lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of ecosystems or the permanent alteration of natural cycles.”

The peculiarities from the environmental point of view of the Mar Menor advise the adoption of various measures to ensure that navigation in these waters does not cause damage to the marine environment. In this way, maritime navigation will contribute to the protection and recovery of a space whose uniqueness is recognised both nationally and internationally.

Maritime navigation in the waters of the Mar Menor is not responsible for the problems that currently plague this environment. However, it is possible to adopt measures that help reduce the impact caused by ships and boats.

With the same purpose, measures are adopted to prevent discharges into the Mar Menor from ships or boats, establish speed limitations (in a manner compatible with international conventions that also regulate this matter) and anchoring conditions are imposed. Likewise, pleasure boats and jet skis manufactured after 2006 must meet the technical and commercialisation requirements in relation to the exhaust and noise emissions of their engines.

In short, this regulation aims to take a step forward in the recovery and protection of the Mar Menor, in coordination with the rest of the administrations with jurisdiction for these actions. And in this way minimize the pressures of all the activities carried out in the Mar Menor.