The general director of Environmental Quality and Climate Change, Mireia Boya, and the general director of Maritime Policy and Sustainable Fishing, Sergi Tudela, have delivered the first 10 badges of guarantee of environmental quality for centers of maritime activities, among which are several dive centers on the Costa Brava. The Department of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda approved in February 2022 this new category of Environmental Quality Guarantee Badge for maritime activity centers with the in order to ensure that the activities carried out in these centers are respectful of the aquatic environment, natural resources, underwater heritage and the safety of people.
Since then, nautical academies, diving centers and nautical centers in Catalonia can apply for the Badge of guarantee of environmental quality for the category of Centers of maritime activities.
The centers that have already obtained it are: Port de la Selva Dive Center, Club Nàutic Port de la Selva, Oceansub-Estartit, Diving Center la Sirena, Medas Poseidon-Diving center la Sirena, Start Derivada-Diving center la Sirena , Unisub Estartit, El Rei del Mar, Costa Brava Divers l’Estartit and Medaqua 13 Service.
Awareness and conservation
To apply for the certificate, these centers must be registered with the General Directorate of Maritime Policy and Sustainable Fishing and comply with the environmental quality criteria established for maritime activity centers, which have been established, with the collaboration of a working group made up of representatives of the sector, so that the principles of the circular economy are met, with a special emphasis on the conservation of the environment and the awareness of users towards the environment. Other criteria are related to optimal waste management, the promotion of sustainable mobility, the purchase and use of products and materials that are more environmentally friendly, energy saving and efficiency, and water conservationothers.
More than 500 centers
According to details from the Generalitat, the need to create these distinctive signs arises with the increase since the 1960s in tourist activity in the coastal areas of Catalonia, until they constitute an important economic engine of the territory. In addition, we must add the situation arising from the pandemic, which has given a new boost to the demand for recreational activities in the maritime area by local and foreign tourism since 2020, which has found in marine ecosystems a safe area for leisure and rest. This reality, however, has increased the pressure of these recreational activities on particularly sensitive and fragile ecosystems. Currently, there are more than 500 active maritime activity centers in Catalonia.
The Government presents the National Commitment for Responsible Tourism
The president of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Pere Aragonès, accompanied by the Minister of Business and Employment, Roger Torrent i Ramió, has presented, in front of 400 people, the National Commitment for Responsible Tourism, the Catalan tourism roadmap, in which more than a hundred entities have joined.
The National Commitment for Responsible Tourism, coordinated by the professor of the Faculty of Tourism at the University of Girona, José Antonio Donaire Benito, is the result of a process of collective participation and an effort to reconcile projects and views of the country very several that mark 67 challenges and objectives, as detailed by the Government. According to Aragonès, the aim is to “move towards an even more sustainable, more diverse, more socially just and more territorially shared tourism” and “project all the potential we have in Catalonia”.