Forty Years Of Conservation: GOB

On the first of December, a fourtieth anniversary was celebrated. It was one to mark the founding of the Grup Ornitològic de Balears, better known as GOB, an organisation which nowadays wields enormous influence in Mallorca and which has come a long way from its origins in 1973.

The organisation was founded in what was still the Franco era. The regime may have been on its last legs but it was still a time when censorship prevailed along with repression. It would have been impossible to have founded an organisation of the type that GOB has become in 1973.

Originally therefore, it was, as its name implies, a group of nature lovers and especially bird lovers who came together in order to promote knowledge of birds and other wildlife and to also promote what was a nascent sense of natural conservation in the Balearics in face of the environmental impact of tourism. In fact, the original group comprised a mere six people whose principal interest was in the island's vultures.

1973 is often referred to as the year when the first tourism boom ended. There is a good reason why. 1973 was the year of the Yom Kippur War and the year that the oil crisis arose. Tourism, for some three to four years, was affected. Numbers of tourists to Mallorca declined, and the oil crisis was to bring about a change in attitudes on the island both in terms of external relationships with tour operators and airlines and in terms of the environment. GOB's founding was coincidental, but it was extremely prescient.

With the passing of the Franco regime and the move towards democracy and regional autonomy, which was formalised thirty years ago, GOB grew and started to change its character. By the 1980s, it was organising campaigns of a much wider environmental nature. They all had the philosophy of conservation and they were directed initially at ensuring protection for natural areas, such as Albufera, and then at developments, be they roads, hotel complexes or other building and infrastructure. One of the landmark schemes in those early years was the acquisition of the La Trapa biological reserve in the Tramuntana mountain. Public support enabled the acquisition. In 1980, GOB took over La Trapa. The destruction caused by the fire this summer resulted in a new wave of public support to raise funds; La Trapa and so therefore GOB has a position in the Mallorcan consciousness which goes deep.

Though the first regional government might not have admitted it, GOB's influence on it was evident. Along with the first tourism plan came the first real legislation aimed at environmental matters. This wasn't only needed in order to balance the impact of increasing tourism numbers, it was also needed to address the effects of population growth and so therefore resources; between 1960 and 1980, the population of Mallorca had increased by almost 200,000 to over half a million in total.

A more openly political Mallorca, courtesy of regional government, began to mean a more political GOB. In a sense, it was only really taking a lead from other environmental movements, but this political edge is summed up in a dossier that was drawn up only a few years ago. The organisation listed four key objectives. Three were to do with conservation, biodiversity, education about the environment, actions against environmental destruction and in favour of sustainable development. The fourth was to do with facilitating society's participation in a better democracy.

GOB's relationship with governments has, especially in the past few years, been somewhat strained. Yet, in 1997 the national environment ministry of the government of José Maria Aznar (Partido Popular) awarded it the national prize for the environment. Less surprising in political terms perhaps was the awarding of the Balearics Gold Medal by the PSOE-led Balearics Government in 2002.

More recently though, GOB's activities have led to political opponents saying that it should put up or shut up and make itself an official political entity. It does, as an organisation, appear to be close to the Mallorcan nationalist left-wing, represented by the PSM (Mallorcan socialists) now in alliance with others, including the Greens, in the Més grouping. GOB's campaigning has moved away from the purely environmental. It has, for example, been involved with pro-Catalan initiatives and with the effort to prevent the closure of TV Mallorca. Back on firmer environmental ground, GOB staged a protest against the current government's environment policies at the Berlin Travel Fair earlier this year. One of the main issues it wanted to highlight was the planned hotel development near to Es Trenc beach.

GOB has been accused of being anti-tourism. There might be some truth to the accusation, but forty years on from its founding, the issues posed by tourism and also by population growth have changed only in terms of their scale. From tourism numbers in the five millions in the 1980s to the eight to nine millions now; from a population of 550,000 in 1980 to one that is now some 300,000 greater. It may have moved a long way from its original remit but its relevance is stronger than ever.