Losing Beaches In Calvià

Calvià town hall has produced a magazine by the name of "Entorn de Calvià" (Calvià's environment). It is 138 pages long, full of pictures and full of worthy but uninviting scientific detail. It is also in Catalan, so you'll probably give it a miss, other than to look at the pictures. It is a magazine which shows that there is very much more to Calvià than that with which it is most typically associated - its beach resorts of Magalluf, Palmanova, Peguera and Santa Ponsa. Highlighting the diversity of the municipality is a worthwhile exercise in its own right, but it is the highlighting of concerns about its beaches which will make the greatest impression. The magazine has four themes - nature, flora and fauna, the coastline and climate change. These themes are inter-related, but the inter-relationship is greatest, simply because of the overwhelming tourist demand, among the latter two: the impact of climate change on Calvià's beaches.

There isn't anything particularly new in conclusions that are drawn about the effects of climate change; they are ones that have been made regarding Mallorca as a whole. What is perhaps new is the fact that one town, and a very important town in terms of its contribution to the island's tourism, should be addressing the climate change-beach issue as it affects the town's beaches alone.

The loss of up to fifteen metres of beach and a rise in sea level of twenty centimetres by the middle of this century are familiar claims. It is the dramatic nature of such claims that can make it difficult to accept the predictions. If they are right, however, then the impacts will be as dramatic as the disappearance of coastline and the appearance of sea in someone's living-room; they are impacts that will affect the whole topography of the 50-plus kilometres of Calvià's coastline and what lies immediately behind it.

I say this, but as I have remarked previously, it is difficult to conceptualise what all this loss of beach would look like. It's why it would be helpful were there some modelling and simulation that we could all see. We might not believe it, but at least we would know what we talking about. It is only once one appreciates the potential practical implications that decisions, if any, can be made, though whether such decisions, were they to imply truly dramatic topographical alteration, would be made by normally inert and complacent governmental bodies and others is another question.

There are other issues, again familiar ones. Reduced rainfall means pressures on water supplies. The pace of land erosion, and so not just coastal erosion, is quickening and will quicken further because of forest fires. Neither having insufficient resources to keep tourists watered nor envisaging a possible desertisation sounds like great news for a town that provides a fifth of Mallorca's tourist places. Nor does the rise in temperature, though I am not so sure about this; tourists are like curry-eaters, some prefer no hotter than a Madras while others love a vindaloo.

It is the unknown of climate change, the unpredictability, the big question marks which all, despite reports such as Calvià's, make the taking of decisions or taking action so difficult. Why invest in something so uncertain? There are those who are certain of the effects of climate change on Mallorca and there are those who are not. The result? Inaction. Does it make sense, however, if the predictions really are as dramatic as we are led to believe, for the investment that is currently taking place to continue? Magalluf's Wave House is all fine and dandy, but it won't be if a real wave comes crashing in on it.

Yet, the possibility of this happening is years away, a long enough time for a very healthy return to have been made on current investment. But, and this is another aspect of the uncertainty, the loss of coast and the rise in sea level won't just occur on a particular day in, say, 2050. Do we conclude that the sea will be up by ten centimetres by 2030? I'm still not sure I know what this would actually entail, but a shorter time horizon should exercise minds rather more than one reaching into the middle of the century.

My guess is that the report, fine though it no doubt is, will receive earnest responses from all concerned and then be filed on a shelf somewhere. It will be safe enough, as Calvià town hall is well inland, so there will be no worry that it might be washed away. There again, with all the fires that are in store, it might end up on the wrong end of an inferno.

* The magazine can be seen here: http://issuu.com/culturacalvia/docs/entorn


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Zones for tiqueteros in Calvià proposed

Business associations in Calvià have proposed that there be seven zones for tiqueteros (PRs) to operate in the main tourist centres of the town, e.g. Magalluf and Santa Ponsa. These would only be for PRs from clubs and not small bars. PRs for the latter can only operate in front of their establishments.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Calvià police have issued 600 fines for beach massage

The local police in Calvià have brought to an end their summer season security operation on the town's beaches during which 600 fines were issued to Chinese people offering massage on the beaches.

See more: Ultima Hora

One Hundred Years Of Multitude

The population of Mallorca has grown by 240% over the last 100 years. Such growth is not in the least bit surprising but what requires some explanation is why certain towns have grown while others have shrunk and so why towns that were more populous in 1910 are now less so.

The town that has experienced the greatest percentage increase is not Palma, as you might think, but Calvià. In 1910 its population was under 3,000; it is now over 50,000, making it the largest town in Mallorca after Palma. Calvia's growth is easy to explain - tourism and a related increase in the residential population. But this growth has been far from smooth; Calvià's boom has occurred over the past 30 years, 41,000 people added to a 1979 population of just over 11,000.

This growth can also be explained by the fact that Calvià is a satellite of Palma, as also are Marratxí and Llucmajor. While the rise in population in the latter is also due to tourism, Marratxí's 700% rise over 100 years is almost solely the result of the spread of the island's southern conurbation. The two other main towns on the island - Inca and Manacor - have experienced rises in population of similar degree, 260% and 230% respectively. Of the two, Inca's is more dramatic. Manacor has coastal tourism that Inca doesn't. Industry, and especially the leather industry, has made Inca the fifth largest town after Palma.

Industrial concentration and therefore migration and better infrastructure probably explain why some towns in Mallorca's interior have suffered from de-population since 1910; Sineu and Petra have declined, along with Selva and Llubí which are close to Inca.

Behind Calvià and Marratxí in terms of percentage growth comes Alcúdia. A population of slightly less than 3,000 in 1910 is now just under 20,000, and Alcúdia offers an interesting case example of how growth was engineered, both tourist and residential.

Alcúdia is the largest of the small towns in Mallorca, by which is meant that its population is less than 20,000, the threshold for towns to be reclassified in terms of municipal responsibilities and size of town hall administrations. Its growth has different explanations. Before mass tourism, it was Alcúdia, with its port potential, that was selected as the site for north-coast industrialisation; the original power station and the gas factory being located close to the port.

The power station was to prove important to what then occurred in the engineering of the purpose-built tourism and residential centre that created the sprawl away from the port area and along the coast. Ash from the power station was used in the reclamation of a huge part of Albufera and from which rose the Bellevue and Magic areas in the early 1970s.

Contrast this with neighbouring Pollensa. It was over twice the size of Alcúdia in 1910 but now has 3,000 fewer inhabitants. There was no similar tourism engineering, or none that was on the same scale as Alcúdia's. Contrast Alcúdia also with another neighbour, Muro. It was larger than Alcúdia in 1910 but its population today is only 2,350 greater than 100 years ago (just under 7,000). Unlike Alcúdia, there was no base from which to grow tourism and residential real estate. Playa de Muro didn't properly exist until the 1960s and when it came into existence there was crucially comparatively little reclamation of Albufera across the municipal boundary with Alcúdia.

Another town with an intriguing population history is Sóller. In 1910 it was the sixth largest town overall. It is still the eleventh largest but its population growth of 64% is way down on the total growth. Sóller is in a way a case of a place that peaked early. It grew in the nineteenth century on the back of its port and the export of oranges and olives and then again in the early twentieth century, partly thanks to the train tackling its isolation. But that isolation has never truly been overcome.

Then there are the interior towns that have experienced de-population. Industrial concentration elsewhere is one reason, but there are others: Sineu's population was slashed when the original rail line that had served the town was closed in the 1970s; Petra suffered from a failure to develop a wine industry; Llubí lost people due to emigration to the US.

Except for industrial towns such as Inca and towns with heavy tourism dependence, Mallorca's population has been surprisingly stable over the past one hundred years, decline in some towns compensated by modest growth in others. But the single most important reason for the overall population growth can be attributed to one place - Palma. Of an increase a touch over 600,000 people since 1910 to a Mallorca total today of 873,000, Palma is responsible for over half of it.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Closing speeches in Hirst trial

The jury at the trial of John Hirst and others accused of involvement with Hirst's Ponzi investment scheme is expected to start its deliberations next week, having heard closing speeches and the judge's summing up.

See more: Huddersfield Daily Examiner

MALLORCA TODAY - Calvià reduces tiquetero tax

The daily charge on businesses who will now be able to once more employ tiqueteros (PRs) to promote their businesses in resorts such as Magalluf has been reduced by Calvià town hall to between 15 and 30 euros per day, depending on the size of the establishment. The PRs will be limited to operating in front of the businesses, though those representing discos will be able to operate more widely.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

Filthy Water: Renaming Magalluf

In 2005, a local plebiscite in the village of Dingle in Ireland voted overwhelmingly in favour of a proposal for the village's name to be bilingual, with Dingle, the English version, being retained. Despite this, the village's name appears only in Irish on road signs, except where Dingle has been sprayed onto them.

The curious case of Dingle was one to do with the Irish Official Languages Act and the advancement of place names in the Irish language. It has echoes of the suggestion made by the Balearic Government that there should be a "castellanisation" of Mallorcan place names, but there are other issues that come into the equation if a place name might be changed, and one of them is tourism. The people of Dingle, where there is a good tourism industry, were concerned that visitors would no longer be able to find the village were its English name to be dropped.

Dingle has some old Spanish connections. Its parish church was rebuilt in the sixteenth century with the help of Spanish money. Pilgrims sailing from the port in Dingle to Santiago de Compostela would, in all likelihood, never have ventured further, such as along the western seaboard of the Iberian peninsula, into the Mediterranean and thence to what was once just another small Mallorcan coastal village.

1234 is the year in which the name Magaluf ben Jusef was first recorded. The toponomy of Magalluf (or Magaluf with one "l" if you prefer; no one seems to really know which it should be) reveals that the resort's name has a less than edifying history; it is derived from the Arabic "ma haluf" and means filthy water.

Magalluf and Dingle have something in common, or may get something in common. There is talk of changing the name of Magalluf, not for linguistic reasons but in order to shed its reputation and graft onto the resort a new name. Unlike Dingle, it probably wouldn't keep the old name; it would become something different and that would be that.

The talk doing the rounds at Calvià town hall has a familiar ring to it. Now, where have I heard the suggestion that Magalluf might get a name change before? Oh yes, that'll be it. On this blog. I made the suggestion and wondered (back in early October last year and in light of the re-development by Meliá Hotels International) how long it would be before Magalluf ceased to be Magalluf.

There is, however, a problem with changing the name. In fact, there are several problems, one of them being around 800 years of history. But the greatest problem would be, as the people of Dingle were aware of, the confusion that would arise from a change, especially for tourists. Magalluf's reputation may not be all that it might, but, as resorts go, it has, as marketing people like to put it, high name recognition and awareness. Everyone's heard of it.

A suggestion as to a new name is Nova Calvià, hardly a novel suggestion for a town which already has the odd other nova. But the presence of Palmanova next door to Magalluf offers something of a precedent. Palmanova was an invention of a name. It was meant to have replaced Son Caliu, though this name (and indeed area) still exists. So, does here come a new and super nova? Possibly, though new Calvià might cause a touch of resentment in the rest of the municipality.

Even if Magalluf were to acquire a new name, it would take years for it to lose the old one, if at all. People aren't stupid, and that goes for tourists. They can call it Nova Calvià, but it might backfire, not because the name would necessarily be bad but because it would be seen for what it is - marketing. And as soon as the road sings were altered, there would be the Brotherhood of ben Jusef (1234) taking to Facebook, conducting a campaign and creeping around in the dead of night with their spray cans.

Of course, if everyone was aware of what Magalluf's name means, then this might be reasonable grounds for changing it as it is. There again, why wasn't it changed years ago? Nevertheless, in Nova Calvià or Meliá New Town, be it what it may be, there is some sense to a name change. Who wants to be heading off to a brand spanking new, re-developed resort that goes under the name of Filthy Water?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.