Photography: Luís Rodrigues
Surf schools and camper vans parking will be conditioned on the beaches of the Ericeira World Surfing Reserve, according to the Management Plan recently approved by the respective ‘guardian’ entities.
This Management Plan establishes 45 measures and 95 actions to be implemented over the next three years to overcome or minimize the 22 threats to the environmental sustainability of the Reserve, one of them being the surplus of surf schools in this region.
To that effect, the plan establishes that one of the interventions, to be completed by June 2019, is to regulate the carrying capacity of the waves and beaches, conditioning in a more restricted way the activities of those operators.
The abusive and unruly parking of camper vans near the beaches have led the guardians to undertake to place prohibition signs and physical barriers in the current year and, by June 2019, the city council will create parking grants for that purpose. Such physical barriers have already been placed at the entrance to the RMSE beaches.
The lack of regulation and legislation in the development plans for the RMSE, the only one in Europe, is also seen as a threat in a territory with strong tourist pressure, and which claims to be a protected landscape area. For this reason, the intervention will include its incorporation in the national development plans, namely in the new Coastal Zone Development Plan (POOC), and also the creation of a regulation for the Reserve later this year.
Pedro Bicudo: we have the guarantee that all the beaches will be classified as natural
After integrating the Natura 2000 Network and having become a municipal protected area, “[as part of the discussion of the new POOC], we have the guarantee that all the beaches will be classified as natural,” Pedro Bicudo, president of SOS – Save the Surf, told Lusa. SOS is one of the guardians that belong to the Municipal Council for the Management of the Reserve and is the representative in Portugal of the Save the Waves organization, which granted this title to Ericeira.
Esta publicação também está disponível em | This article is also available in: Portuguese (Portugal)
