And now the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has been caught up in the ongoing saga that is the projected golf course on the Son Bosc finca in Muro next to the Albufera wetlands.
Do not expect militant twitchers to be marching on Muro town hall, but if you happen to run a hotel in Playa de Muro that normally hosts bird-watchers in the spring, then there may be fewer sets of binoculars standing on bedside tables. The environmental group GOB, which has undertaken an international campaign against the golf development, is calling on RSPB members to boycott Muro hotels that open for the spring intake of nature-lovers and cyclists.
As an alliance of representatives of a wider flora-and-fauna movement, there is some logic to GOB’s call, but where exactly should the ornithologists stay, or should they simply stay in the UK and head for Minsmere or some other English location? And what has all this to do with the hotels anyway? The answer lies in the fact that the Playa de Muro hotel association supports the development. No great surprise there.
Hitting the local economy, even by dissuading a relatively small number of visitors, is not necessarily a way of winning friends, but it is a stock-in-trade of pressure groups, and highlights the polarity of positions in respect of the economy and the environment that is hard to reconcile.
Despite the apparent legal protection that Son Bosc has (and there are always ways around that), I wonder whether GOB is not miscalculating this particular fight. It must surely be within the wit of designers to ensure that the rare orchid that grows in Son Bosc is not affected: this is a golf course after all, not a hypermarket or an urbanisation. The only trouble is, I suppose, that some high-handicapper hooks into some rough, and belts an orchid into fairway oblivion with an iron: either that or shanks a tee-shot straight onto the head of a passing twitcher.
QUIZ
Yesterday – “I Know What I Like In Your Wardrobe” from our old friends Genesis. Today’s title - John Peel described him as a genius. American blues-rock artist who has appeared on this blog before.
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