The war between the barnacle and the mussel that has been shaking the Galician coast for more than three years is getting worse and more complicated. These are probably the two most emblematic species of the Galician coast. The barnacle stands out for its qualitative value, as exquisiteness, with very high prices but with a not very high business volume. The relevance of the mussel is rather quantitative, since Galicia is among the world's most important producers. The battle for control of the cliffs is waged by the percebeiros and the bateeiros, which is how the shoulderers are known. The key lies in the small mussel, the mussel seed, found on the cliffs.
First, the Xunta changed the rules of the traditional game, which angered the bateeiros , as a little over two years ago it established zones of exclusive barnacle production along some 50 kilometers of coastline. This year he cut them by nearly half, which put the Percebeiros on a war footing without their opponents burying the hatchet. "To govern is to displease", said the legendary Portuguese socialist, Mário Soares. From this point of view, the Conselleria del Mar would have reached the ideal point by angering both parties in the dispute. Despite this, the management has been erratic, the consensus demanded by parliamentary unanimity has not been reached, the technical reports have been controversial and there has been a lack of transparency prior to the making of key decisions.
The conflict seems to have overwhelmed the councilor, Rosa Quintana, the only one who survived the entire mandate of Alberto Núñez Fejóo, from 2009 to 2023, together with the current president, Alfonso Rueda. She came to be cornered by the bateeiros in an event in Vilagarcía. And in the midst of the municipal pre-campaign, unrest is emerging within the party, with mayors and candidates from the affected areas against the ministry. She defends herself by brandishing the history of countless meetings and decisions based on technical reports and saying that she is the counselor of the two species.
It all started with a section of article 13 of a decree of the Ministry of the Sea of 2019 in which it was planned to establish exclusive areas for the collection of barnacles. The Xunta thus met the demands of this sector, which denounced that when extracting the seeds of the mussel, the rocks and their valuable product were also extracted. The shoulderers warned that the viability of their prosperous sector, which needs the seed for production on the shoulderers, the wooden platforms so characteristic of the estuaries, was in jeopardy.
Each sector has its own epic, with the plastic photographs of the percebeiros frequently risking their lives on the cliffs in the middle of the strong swell and the image of the bateeiros, together with other sea professionals, collecting the Prestige's fuel with their hands to prevent it from entering the Arousa estuary and contaminating its precious production. It reaches turnovers of around 150 million euros a year, more than fifteen times above those of the barnacle, while the differences in employment, although they are very controversial, do not reach such high magnitudes.
There have been situations of conflict in which the Civil Guard has had to intervene. And the two contenders exchange strong accusations. Thus, from the side of the bateeiros, it is stated that the barnacle problem lies in poor management and poaching and that extracting the seeds from the mussels does not actually harm them. And they warn that the future of a key sector in the Galician economy is at risk.
For their part, the percebeiros denounce environmental damage due to the mass production of the mussel and insist that the bateeiros have alternatives to obtain the seed, and that they do not. They talk about a black market.
As the bateeiros have already done several times, the percebeiros will go to court and demonstrate on Saturday in Santiago, while their opponents continue to demand the total annulment of the exclusion zones. The cliffs roar, and not just from the waves.
