View of Argentine Sea from Las Grutas, Rio Negro. (Photo: Jaquichianura/CC BY-SA 4.0)
ARGENTINAMonday, November 24, 2014, 00:20 (GMT + 9)
Unanimously, the Chamber of Deputies approved a bill to create a National System of Marine Protected Areas.
This initiative will seek to protect certain maritime zones of the Argentine Sea.
According to the NGO Fundación Vida Silvestre, "Now, Argentina must face the challenge of identifying the most relevant sites to protect the living resources of the Argentine Sea, and advance in specific bills for the creation of new marine protected areas."
In addition, the organization noted that Argentina has committed to achieving the 10 per cent protection of the sea by 2020, which currently only reaches 3 per cent, reported Pescare.
Meanwhile, Elsa Ruiz Diaz, senator and one of the authors of the bill, commented: "Several studies have shown some of the positive effects of marine protected areas (MPAs), such as fisheries recovery, increase in size, fish and invertebrate specimen abundance and diversity and export of larvae or juveniles to adjacent areas as well as the recovery of the ecosystem structure and function."
On Wednesday, the Senate House granted preliminary approval to the bill.
According to the lawmaker, MPAs are "natural areas established for the protection of ecosystems, communities or biological or geological features of the marine environment, including seabeds and associated columns, which because of their rarity, fragility, importance or uniqueness deserve special protection for the use, education and enjoyment of present and future generations," informed El Parliamentario.
For his part, Senator Daniel Filmus stressed that the approval of the bill "helps to further strengthen environmental care and protection" of sovereignty.
Filmus recalled that in July "the Senate had already passed a law on the creation of the MPA Namuncura-Banco Burdwood at the southern tip of the country."