GONHS & Co Urge Tripartite Forum To Address Environmental Issues in Bay of Gibraltar

Environmental groups from both Gibraltar and Spain have submitted a letter to the Tripartite Forum asking it to realise its agreements on environmental issues in the Bay of Gibraltar, the Gibraltar Chronicle wrote today. Our sister charity the Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society (GOHNS), the Asociacion Gaditana de Defensa y Estudio de la Naturaleza (AGADEN), the Environmental Safety Group (ESG), Greenpeace and Verdemar-Ecologistas en Accion addressed Spanish and UK Foreign Ministers Miguel Angel Moratinos and David Milliband and Gibraltar's Chief Minister Peter Caruana.

According to the Gibraltar Chronicle the environmental groups welcome the Tripartite Forum's agreements regarding the environment but urge the governments to present "an executable plan of action that will specify the measures that will be taken and when these will come into effect ... to ensure that the bay and citizens who live within it, are better protected from the excessive pollution levels in the area".

Previously to the Tripartite Forum Meeting in Gibraltar in July 2009, environmental groups of Gibraltar and Spain had submitted their demands and solutions regarding environmental issues of the Bay of Gibraltar. The Gibraltar Chronicle clarified, that according to the forum's media declaration after the meeting the forum agreed to tackle several of these points.

The Gibraltar Chronicle quotes Janet Howitt of the ESG: “Environmental groups have been campaigning and researching Bay environmental issues for many years now. We have protested and filed official complaints against the massive environmental degradation which has taken place in the Bay with, it is believed, lethal consequences for the environment and for public health, and we have repeatedly called for action from the authorities. The agreements reached by the Forum could bring about meaningful change in the many unsustainable activities in the Bay and we would like to form part of this change.”