Protect 30% of marine areas: Portugal brings target forward to 2026

Portugal will bring forward to 2026 the goal to establish 30% of Marine Protected Areas – a target set by the United Nations with the horizon being the year 2030.

The announcement to bring this forward by four years was made by the Prime Minister on 4 October 

While speaking during the opening session of the 2nd Sustainable Blue Economy Investment Forum in Estoril, António Costa underlined the profound and historical ties between the country and the sea and recalled that "Portugal has jurisdiction over almost 50% of the European maritime space and almost 50% of its respective maritime floors and subsoils". One of the "most extensive marine areas in the world and the second largest in the European Union", which brings specific responsibilities and challenges, namely around the "urgency regarding the need to protect the oceans", an urgency that Portugal responds to by bringing forward the so-called 30X30 target. 

A Sustainable Blue Economy, one of the Government’s priorities

At his speech to open the Forum, the leader of the Executive noted that "the se ais also now more than ever a strategic resource, vital, in fact, for the world" and recalled that "investing in the sea and realising the Sustainable Blue Economy’s potential is one of this Government’s priorities".

In this context, Portugal has been endeavouring to boost the sea economy’s role in "the European strategic competitiveness, supporting the developing of ocean renewables and fostering technological innovation in the field of the Blue Bioeconomy".

If the se ais in the country’s "historical DNA," it is also a milestone for the future. "In ocean renewables we have a clear ambition: to reach installed capacity of 10-gigawatt offshore wind power generation by 2030", stated the Prime Minister, stressing that Portugal has been hosting since 2020 the first floating offshore wind power farm on the European continent and it is regulating a Technological Free Zone (ZLT) focusing on renewables that come from or are located at sea. On this chapter, António Costa announced that "we will start to grant in a phased-out manner until 2030 new capacity to reach the 10Gw through bids for tender" – "This month we will open the stage for manifesting interest in taking part in offshore wind power projects".

This is an investment that goes alongside with the investment in infrastructure for the Blue Economy, noted António Costa: "We are developing the Blue Hub with 87-million-euro financing from the RRF, a network of R&D centres and universities focused on marine science, technology, and innovation, broadening to the Blue Economy the model of promoting synergies and transferring knowledge between innovation bodies and enterprises that has attracted so many investors to Portugal."

The Prime Minister also underlined that the country is deeply committed to decarbonising maritime shipping with "investments envisaged in Green Shipping that will significantly lower fossil fuel consumption".