On October 17, our colleague from the Sacyr Foundation, Esther Moral, attended the HIC Summit, an event created to promote a new environmental, social, and economic model within the tourism sector in Ibiza (Balearic Islands).
During this event, the first results of the "Restore Posidonia" project were presented. The Sacyr Foundation is collaborating on this project through a partnership agreement we signed this year with the Blue Life Foundation.
The project involves cultivating Posidonia seeds in controlled aquariums, where they germinate under ideal conditions. Once they develop roots and leaves, they are transplanted to the sea.
In early September, a group of divers performed the first dives to manually plant over 1,000 seedlings in the Posidonia meadows of Puig des Molins, a town in Ibiza.
Once planted in the sea, their survival and vegetative growth are monitored periodically. The plants grow at a rate of about 3 to 4 cm per year. Given the slow growth of Posidonia oceanica, it may take over 100 years for the area to return to its pre-degradation state following replanting.
Our colleague from the Foundation also visited Vivo Park, the biotech park where the Posidonia plants are being cultivated in aquariums. Joining her were Sacyr Agua’s Ibiza EDAR representatives, Isabel Maria López Guirao and Salvador Simón Escanez, along with Oscar Caro, president of Blue Life Foundation.
This project also receives support from CSIC-IMEDEA and the Santander Foundation.
The Posidonia oceanica is the planet’s longest-living and largest organism, with over 100,000 years of life and extending up to eight kilometers in length, found in the seabeds of Ibiza and Formentera.