Mouthing Off

Certain acronyms for organisations don't do these organisations any favours. The FA, for instance, can all too easily represent what critics claim it does, or rather doesn't do. And it's sweet.

Acronyms come in different forms. Some, like the FA, are spoken as individual letters; others are spoken as words. One of these is GOB. Its full name is a mouthful - Grup Balear d'Ornitolgia i Defensa de la Naturalesa. The D and the N have been discarded in allowing for a simpler pronunciation and in also allowing for an Anglicisation and for jokes at its expense. Got a hell of a gob on it. It's got a gob on. A gobby bunch of environmentalists.

Whenever an environmental issue emerges from some threatened undergrowth, and sometimes when it doesn't, GOB has a lot to say for itself. It is in the nature of the work of nature's defenders that it should feel compelled to make utterances against the designs of government, constructors, hotels, tourists, buses, road builders, drivers, and whoever else happens to loom onto the potentially harmful environmental horizon. It is work that is never done.

Mallorca For Sale is GOB's latest campaign. Not that it wants to sell Mallorca of course; it is fearful that Jolly Joe Bauzá and his Partido Popular chums will. GOB is outraged that Bauzá is contemplating creating some dynamism for the moribund Mallorcan economy by easing laws to enable the building of theme parks, more commercial centres and even a Formula 1 circuit. Consequently, it has started an online petition against the forces of development.

Some of this is dreadfully old hat. In the case of Muro's golf course, the hat dates back to the nineties and we're still no nearer knowing who might actually get to wear it. So old are some of the projected developments that GOB complains about, and so tedious are the endless arguments, that most people gave up long ago taking any interest in them.

It's not to say that GOB doesn't engage in good works. It does. But its constant carping has a touch of the cry-wolf; the public might believe in what GOB says but it withdraws its sympathy because there is so much carping and precious little by way of alternative solutions, save for the we should all go back to the land and live off wind and solar energy variety.

Nevertheless, it is an indication of the degree to which the environment plays a key role in decision-making in Mallorca, that of both business and government, that GOB's voice is given such prominence. Because the environment is such an important issue to the island, it is only right and proper that a strong environmental lobby exists to try and prevent excesses. GOB serves this purpose, and it does its job well in looking to meet its objectives of the "conservation, dissemination and study of nature and the environment of the Balearic Islands".

However, the centrality of the environment to the decision-making process has pushed GOB ever further towards politicisation. It is a charity, but its independence and indeed its objectives have become potentially compromised.

The Muro golf course was a case in point. When the PSM (Mallorcan socialists) assumed control of the environment department in the last regional government, the immediate decision to put a halt to the course's development came as absolutely no surprise; the closeness between the PSM and GOB and the similar statements the two were coming out with made it appear as though GOB was like the PSM's provisional wing.

The left having been pretty much eclipsed at the last election, the strongest voices of opposition are emanating from groups which are, in theory at any rate, not political, e.g. GOB. And when the established political left has managed to raise its weary voice, there too is GOB to add its support. But to issues that have nothing to do with GOB. Go back and look at its objectives. Where in any of these is there anything about the TV Mallorca radio and television station? Yet, there was GOB leaping to the station's defence. When an anti-corruption platform emerged last year, which was one of the groups? Yep, GOB. Again, there is nothing in its objectives about corruption.

In the past, GOB has been challenged to basically put up or shut up by coming out and making itself a political entity. It won't do, and nor should it, because it does perform an important function. But as it allows itself to be so constantly involved in the political process and to be involved in matters which are not within its remit, then its function does become open to question.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.