BARCELONA - Jean Charest was extolling the virtues of his ambitious Northern Plan in Spain on Monday, while at the same time casting some doubt on the environmental conservation aspects of the arctic development project.

Charest said during a press conference in Barcelona that the Northern Plan's goal of protecting 50 per cent of the land found above the 49th parallel was ambitious and that the details of how to achieve that goal are yet to be defined.

He also did not eliminate the possibility of allowing the forestry industry access to the protected zone, re-affirming a statement made last week by the deputy environment minister Léopold Gaudreau.

However, Charest did say that there would be no mining activity permitted in the protected area, a hypothesis raised last week by Environment Minister Pierre Arcand.

In an afternoon presentation to Catalonian business people Monday, Charest made a point to mention an endorsement for the Northern Plan by the International Boreal Conservation Campaign (IBCC) made in May, qualifying it as "the largest land conservation plan in history."

However, the IBCC and its domestic counterpart the Canadian Boreal Initiative sent Charest a letter recently imploring him to ban any forestry activity in the protected zones.

Earlier Monday, Charest visited the Catalonian parliament and meeting parliamentary president Nuria de Gispert, the first woman ever to hold the position.

Answering questions of the Quebec press corps, de Gispert said that Catalonian nationalism is alive and well in the semi-autonomous region found in the eastern part of Spain. But, like in Quebec, she said Catalonians are divided on the question of independence.

In an interview published Sunday in a Barcelona daily newspaper, Charest called himself a "nationalist" while also affirming that the virtual whitewash of the Bloc Québécois in the last federal election reflects the population's boredom over a long-standing debate and a desire for a renewal.

He also said, however, that many Quebecers continue to believe in independence even if they are tired of talking about it.