The Minister of the Sea, Ana Paula Vitorino, and the Secretary of State for Fisheries, José Apolinario, have opened the 31st Olhão Seafood Festival but at an earlier meeting in the town hall the minister revealed that she is working on an unprecedented coastal management plan that will devolve power and responsibilities to local councils.
"We are working with the municipalities to do something unheard of in the Algarve,” said the minister, who said the goal is "to establish a partnership between the Central Administration, Docapesca, Ports of Sines and the Algarve Authority, Local Government, municipalities and the mayors group AMAL, to establish policy priorities for the Algarve."
The minister's revelation came in response to a question from Sul Informação about the need for work at the Tavira exit from the Ria Formosa due to silting which, coupled with the wind, for some days now has prevented fishermen and tourist boats heading out to sea.
According to the Jorge Botelho, mayor of Tavira, who welcomes devolution as it gives local authorities the power to intervene directly in matters concerning their seafront, "this is a pioneering model to be applied in the Algarve."
How this move will impact on matters maritime is too early to assess but the principle of a degree of devolvement, if handled right, is a sound one as the Algarve’s fishing communities have not been best served by government initiatives and the control exercised over the Algarve’s ports and docks by bringing their management under the Ports of Sines and the Algarve Authority has been likened to watching a car crash in slow motion.
Olhão’s deal with Docapesca to release government control over the city’s seafront parade has enabled mothballed tourist development to be planned by the council, for better or for worse.
The problem with devolvement is when the Algarve's councils start to develop sea front projects in a new free market and pay no attention to local feelings and opinions. The plan is a sound one though with decision making closer to those it affects. Whether there is any democratic aspect to this brave new world is not known.
Whether Minister Vitorino sees planned devolvement as a way of halting the seemingly unstoppable demolitions on the Ria Formosa island, also can not yet be answered with certainty.
