The Fomento was handing out its gongs the other evening. This Fomento is that of Turismo, the Majorca Tourist Board, 110 years old this year. Among the recipients, not in person, was King Felipe. A commemorative medal on the occasion of the 110 years will be heading his way. It is recognition also of the support that he, his father and mother and others in the Spanish Royal Family have given to Mallorca's tourism. At a time when the gardens of the Marivent appear destined to be enjoyed at first hand by the citizenry (and presumably also tourists) from next year - a decision which ushers in a sense of greater openness by the royals and also greater closeness to the general public - the contrast with how things were under the King's great-grandfather couldn't be greater. He was Alfonso XIII, who was to eventually end up in exile: Republican fervour was that much stronger in the 1930s than it is nowadays.
There again, the contrast in 1905 (and for some years after), compared to today, was total. Barely anyone, anywhere had heard of Mallorca. It was an island in the middle of nowhere. No one, or very few anyway, went to islands. For the traveller and the nascent tourist, small islands in the Med held minimal appeal unless they were the birthplace of a civilisation, such as Crete. And even there, there was hardly what you could call a flourishing tourism industry. How the hell did they get there, anyway? The early twentieth century traveller preferred the mainland city and its grand hotels: Palma had only just got one when the tourist board was founded.
Royal patronage of Mallorca in 1905 was not that of Alfonso. It came from a foreign royal, the Archduke Louis Salvador, an admittedly fairly minor royal, but a royal nonetheless. One hundred years dead, the Archduke was, in many ways, synonymous with tourism as it existed then. He was to become an honorary president of the tourist board a few years before war forced him to abandon Mallorca (ordered to leave by the Emperor of Austria) and before he was to die in Bohemia in 1915.
I'm unaware of the connection having been made - in vaguely official circles at any rate - between the Archduke's royal lineage, Mallorca and the history of the Nueva Planta, with its own anniversary having just been not celebrated. The Archduke was a Habsburg. He was, therefore, from the European dynasty that Mallorca and the rest of the Crown of Aragon, including Catalonia, had supported during what turned out to be the fateful War of the Spanish Succession. Alfonso was a Bourbon, a descendant of Felipe V, he who had decreed the Nueva Planta.
There is nothing to suggest that the tourist board in its early years concerned itself with such historical matters, but the connection surely couldn't have been lost on some of its members. When the Archduke died, on the two-hundredth anniversary of the Nueva Planta, Mallorca lost one of its great advocates, a supporter of the island from a legacy that the island was deprived of as the consequence of what in effect ended up as a civil war in the early eighteenth century.
As noted previously when looking back at the early years of Mallorca's tourism, the great and good who were involved with the tourist board came from a very broad range of island society. To the ambitions of businesspeople, engineers and the bankers were added the checks and balances that came from the worlds of art, culture, history and nature. This eclectic mix was able to foster development through what was mostly mutual and beneficial regard for seemingly opposing views - those of business and economic development on the one hand and of the environment and heritage, the island's conservation and preservation, on the other. Fundamental to this was the message that the Archduke gave and was to leave behind. His was a tourism of nature and of culture. He was one of Mallorca's first great conservationists. Despite his royal background, he would be a point of reference for certain eco-tourism politicians of the present day.
This said, it was that much easier for the Archduke to have been a conservationist. They weren't to invent Magalluf, for example, until the turn of the 1960s. Nevertheless, the message of the Habsburg defender of Mallorca resonates today, and none more so than in the arguments over what we are not supposed to call the eco-tax but do.
At the tourist board's awards ceremony, its president fired a broadside at the tourism minister, Biel Barceló (who was in attendance). The tax is unjust, it will affect competitiveness. What, one wonders, might the Archduke make of the tax? It is a tax that it is a culmination of 110 years of increasing tension that he couldn't have foreseen: the constant battle between conservation and development.
Showing posts with label Conservation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conservation. Show all posts
Thursday, December 03, 2015
Monday, March 02, 2015
The Saviours Of Mallorca
Mallorca needs saving, not from a collective fall from grace but by conservers and preservers of nature and of the manmade, fighting the good fight against claimers and defilers of the environment and of heritage. "Salvem" is the new rallying cry. Save this, save that. If we don't save whatever it is, then Mallorca is lost. Saving is all around us; calls for the conservation and preservation of both the great and the small are as never before.
There are "salvem" campaigns, groups, platforms, blogs, social media sites in abundance. So great is the saving that it might prove counterproductive; the island could sink under its sheer weight. To all the previous savings, two more have just recently sprung up from a land which, while not all of it is fertile, manages to organically grow new sources of saviour sustenance. "Salvem Sa Canova", "Salvem Portocolom" have allied themselves with, inter alia, "Salvem Es Molinar", "Salvem Sant Kanut", "Salvem Ses Fontanelles", "Salvem Andratx", "Salvem Es Trenc", "Salvem els Paisatges de les Illes Balears".
The two most recent campaigns conveniently distinguish between conservation (the environment) and preservation (buildings and traditions). Sa Canova is the former; Portocolom the latter. But there is common ground between both: symbolism, iconic status, heritage. Sa Canova beach is symbolic of unspoiled coast and iconic as a consequence, while the lighthouse in Portocolom is symbolic of a history that stretches back to the middle of the nineteenth century and is iconic because, well, lighthouses are deemed to be iconic.
The descriptions are a touch overworked. So much is symbolic or iconic that the words lose their power through their constant reiteration. But let us not quibble with the sentiments that inspire saving campaigns to invoke them; these campaigns generally have right and sincerity on their side as well as a moral rectitude of conservation and preservation to support them.
Sa Canova beach lies between Son Serra de Marina and Colonia Sant Pere and falls within the municipality of Artà. It is rustic beach, backed by dunes with one-time submarine-target towers that are familiar to the bay of Alcúdia coastline. Part of it is well known for being a nudist beach, but this is not its only attraction. It represents beach life that was once how it was. Son Serra de Marina, from where most of its visitors come, is Mallorca beach of a past time; laidback and undisturbed with a veneer of contemporary coolness and surf.
Somewhere along its length, the town hall in Artà is considering the installation of a chiringuito beach bar. It would, in all likelihood, be in the more popular nudist section, a walk of perhaps five minutes or so from the couple of bars which mark where Son Serra ends. "Salvem Sa Canova" doesn't want this chiringuito. Rustic beach should be rustic beach and that means the exclusion of a building, even if it would only be temporary and would be dismantled at the end of the season.
Justification for the beach bar is slim. It might be argued that it would be advantageous in terms of providing an additional attraction to tourists, but the argument lacks weight. Tourists go there precisely because the beach is unspoiled, while it is not as if there aren't places for refreshment close by or as if it is too far to walk with cool boxes. Artà town hall might eye up some revenue from granting a concession, though even this might have to be shared with the Costas Authority (which appears to have given its blessing). Why bother? It seems unnecessary.
The lighthouse in Portocolom is one of six lighthouses that the Balearics Ports Authority wishes to privatise. It would still operate as a lighthouse but would be converted into a hotel, a form of privatisation which, while not uncommon in other countries, had not been pursued in Spain until the national development ministry gave the go ahead for regional ports authorities to permit it a couple of years ago.
"Salvem Portocolom" is planning a protest against the privatisation plan later this month, arguing that conversion would conflict with the lighthouse's heritage value, history and status within the public domain. However, though the lighthouse is, given its coastal location, within the (state's) public domain, it isn't for public use. At present, it is well maintained but perhaps the fear is that, sometime in the future, it might not be, while clearly the state has a source of revenue to interest it. But if its appearance were not altered, would privatisation and conversion be so harmful? Maybe not, but for the saviours of the lighthouse, what matters are the symbolism and the heritage. The opposition is essentially, therefore, an emotional one, just as it is in Sa Canova, but what's wrong with this? Some things are worth conserving and preserving for their emotional value, and the number of "salvem" campaigns across Mallorca prove the point.
There are "salvem" campaigns, groups, platforms, blogs, social media sites in abundance. So great is the saving that it might prove counterproductive; the island could sink under its sheer weight. To all the previous savings, two more have just recently sprung up from a land which, while not all of it is fertile, manages to organically grow new sources of saviour sustenance. "Salvem Sa Canova", "Salvem Portocolom" have allied themselves with, inter alia, "Salvem Es Molinar", "Salvem Sant Kanut", "Salvem Ses Fontanelles", "Salvem Andratx", "Salvem Es Trenc", "Salvem els Paisatges de les Illes Balears".
The two most recent campaigns conveniently distinguish between conservation (the environment) and preservation (buildings and traditions). Sa Canova is the former; Portocolom the latter. But there is common ground between both: symbolism, iconic status, heritage. Sa Canova beach is symbolic of unspoiled coast and iconic as a consequence, while the lighthouse in Portocolom is symbolic of a history that stretches back to the middle of the nineteenth century and is iconic because, well, lighthouses are deemed to be iconic.
The descriptions are a touch overworked. So much is symbolic or iconic that the words lose their power through their constant reiteration. But let us not quibble with the sentiments that inspire saving campaigns to invoke them; these campaigns generally have right and sincerity on their side as well as a moral rectitude of conservation and preservation to support them.
Sa Canova beach lies between Son Serra de Marina and Colonia Sant Pere and falls within the municipality of Artà. It is rustic beach, backed by dunes with one-time submarine-target towers that are familiar to the bay of Alcúdia coastline. Part of it is well known for being a nudist beach, but this is not its only attraction. It represents beach life that was once how it was. Son Serra de Marina, from where most of its visitors come, is Mallorca beach of a past time; laidback and undisturbed with a veneer of contemporary coolness and surf.
Somewhere along its length, the town hall in Artà is considering the installation of a chiringuito beach bar. It would, in all likelihood, be in the more popular nudist section, a walk of perhaps five minutes or so from the couple of bars which mark where Son Serra ends. "Salvem Sa Canova" doesn't want this chiringuito. Rustic beach should be rustic beach and that means the exclusion of a building, even if it would only be temporary and would be dismantled at the end of the season.
Justification for the beach bar is slim. It might be argued that it would be advantageous in terms of providing an additional attraction to tourists, but the argument lacks weight. Tourists go there precisely because the beach is unspoiled, while it is not as if there aren't places for refreshment close by or as if it is too far to walk with cool boxes. Artà town hall might eye up some revenue from granting a concession, though even this might have to be shared with the Costas Authority (which appears to have given its blessing). Why bother? It seems unnecessary.
The lighthouse in Portocolom is one of six lighthouses that the Balearics Ports Authority wishes to privatise. It would still operate as a lighthouse but would be converted into a hotel, a form of privatisation which, while not uncommon in other countries, had not been pursued in Spain until the national development ministry gave the go ahead for regional ports authorities to permit it a couple of years ago.
"Salvem Portocolom" is planning a protest against the privatisation plan later this month, arguing that conversion would conflict with the lighthouse's heritage value, history and status within the public domain. However, though the lighthouse is, given its coastal location, within the (state's) public domain, it isn't for public use. At present, it is well maintained but perhaps the fear is that, sometime in the future, it might not be, while clearly the state has a source of revenue to interest it. But if its appearance were not altered, would privatisation and conversion be so harmful? Maybe not, but for the saviours of the lighthouse, what matters are the symbolism and the heritage. The opposition is essentially, therefore, an emotional one, just as it is in Sa Canova, but what's wrong with this? Some things are worth conserving and preserving for their emotional value, and the number of "salvem" campaigns across Mallorca prove the point.
Monday, December 09, 2013
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.
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.
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