Several local fisheries are operating under new management plans for 2025-2027 as Galician authorities strive to protect the environmental health of the resources and increase their economic value, the region’s minister for the sea announced recently. Percebes, (gooseneck barnacle) is just one of several Galician marine resources in Galicia that, along with solenids, echinoderms, sieve, algae, anemones, and polychaetes, are now subject to a set of improved fishery management plans, according to the regional government. These fisheries face environmental pressures even as their popularity grows, posing biological and economic problems for the local industry and fishery managers. In many cases these Galician fisheries are the embodiment of small scale, with some resources harvested by hand along the water’s edge. The management plans have a three-pronged purpose. One is biological, relating to sustainable harvest levels that can be achieved by restricting commercial harvests that will allow long-run stability. A second is ecological, improving biodiversity of the ecosystem in which percebes and other species form a part. The third purpose is economic, bringing all the goals together to maximise sustainable production that maintains long-run employment, volume of production, and income to the fishermen and the communities where they live.
The plans and their associated quotas apply mostly to fishermen’s guilds for the specific species, while a few go to individual firms that process the harvests. Of the total of 153 plans, 148 cover the operations of the guilds and five apply to companies. The management plans form a network of natural areas intended to provide an array of ecosystem services that protect biodiversity. In the percebes plans, extraction areas are reserved for the planting of mussels. For 2025-27, 14 percebes plans managed by 12 guilds are approved. This measure regulating shellfish activity aims to protect and conserve the percebes in specific areas within the scope of the management plan, guaranteeing the compatibility of the extraction of barnacle and mussel seed and that both activities are developed harmoniously, explained a government spokesman. Within the overall plan, there may be areas in which percebes and mussel seed can be extracted, and other areas in which only percebes can be extracted.