It's Time For GOB To Shut Up

Four years ago, in marking the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Grup Ornitològic de Balears, I concluded that GOB had "moved a long way from its original remit but that its relevance (was) stronger than ever". This was a conclusion drawn partly from the fact that tourism and population growth had been placing ever greater strains on Mallorca. There were reasons to praise GOB, such as its historical involvement with preventing development on the island of Dragonera or the work over the decades at the La Trapa biological reserve in the Tramuntana. There is a great deal to admire about GOB; it is an organisation that represents the environmental conscience of Mallorca and has been the island's environmental soul since the 1970s. I'm not a paid-up member of GOB but I often voice my support. However ... .

Two years before that article, I had spoken about issues in which GOB had involved itself but which had little to do with its stated objectives of the "conservation, dissemination and study of nature and the environment of the Balearic Islands". One issue was having leapt to the defence of the TV Mallorca radio and television station. A further was having been part of an anti-corruption platform established in 2010. Broadcasting can be valuable in conveying messages about the environment. Corruption can lead to development that is destructive of the environment. Neither issue was totally divorced from the GOB objectives but then neither was directly associated with them.

A bus station is to be built in Puerto Pollensa. It will make use of an existing development: a small plot owned by the municipality that was tarmacked in the recent past and made into a proper car park. The bus station is necessary, and one of its purposes will be to act as the terminal for a shuttle service to Formentor. The shuttle has been deemed to be a requirement to counteract the "saturation" of vehicles that go along the promontory's twisty road to the lighthouse. It is a sort of environmental solution.

GOB disagrees with this bus station. It doesn't disagree with the principle of the bus station, just its location. It would prefer it to be sited close to what has been described as the "green heart" of Puerto Pollensa, the small park of La Gola, with a lake that is the confluence of the torrent and of the sea. GOB's proposed site wouldn't be environmentally detrimental but it would nevertheless be in an area of greater environmental sensitivity than the site where the bus station will be built.

GOB's objection has to do with the Pollensa town hall general urban plan. The site for the bus station, the organisation says, can only be used for sociocultural, sporting or health care reasons or as an open public space. A bus station is therefore contrary to this plan. The town hall, and here one encounters semantics, says that it isn't a bus station, only bus stops. However it is defined is largely immaterial; GOB has been raising an objection that has nothing whatsoever to do with its objectives. The bus station is an urban planning matter, pure and simple.

Here is an example of where the organisation stretches the limits of its remit and indeed exceeds them, as was the case with TV Mallorca. There are other entities whose roles are to challenge matters such as a bus station: political parties, for instance. But it is here where the problem with GOB lies. It acts like a political party without having any of the responsibility. Its power base has grown enormously since it started life as a bird conservation organisation. It has become inherent to the political process to the extent that its representation on the tourist tax revenue spending committee equates to that of the federation for all the town halls in the Balearics (except Palma).

When GOB fired off a statement attacking the farmers and hunters ("the defenders of the rural world") for their recent protest over government environmental policies, it was seeking to make sure that the government didn't back track; a government it would hope to be highly receptive to its wishes. It is engaged in a battle for who owns the environment, when in fact it belongs to everyone, and that includes those who adhere to a rural way of life, such as the farmers.

But more than this are the politics. There is a GOB youth wing. It has been intimately linked with the highly radical Arran and Endavant groups in attacking tourism. GOB itself was the main organiser of the "massification" demo last month. Its political nature has now become almost indistinguishable from a left-wing, Catalanist, nationalist or independence agenda.

In so doing it can alienate. The environment crosses the spectrum of political views. It is to be defended but not in such a partisan way. GOB's constant interference generates just this sort of alienation. It needs to know when to shut up.

Ich Bin Ein Berliner Protester

The Berlin travel fair is over for another year. It is an event which attracts much media attention in Mallorca because of the importance of the German tourism market. This year's event has attracted the attention of the German media; Mallorca's presence at the fair has been news.

Of Mallorca's big-two tourism markets, the German relationship with the island is different to that of the British. It is a deeper relationship to that of the British, for whom the island is primarily and only a holiday destination. The Germans are more students of Mallorca than the British. The association is so strong, it is as though there were an imaginary land connection between Mallorca and Germany. Weather forecasts specifically feature Mallorca and German newspapers from Mallorca are widely available in Germany.

It was once said by a Mallorcan politician that the British have Mallorca "in their genes". If they do, then these genes are partly German. Mallorca is a holiday birthright for the Germans as much as the Chiemsee, South Tyrol and the islands of Sylt and Rügen are.

The participation of Mallorca and the Balearics at the Berlin travel fair has been news in Germany in a way that would be unimaginable in the UK; unimaginable, because events at the Berlin travel fair wouldn't have occurred at London's travel fair. And they wouldn't have occurred because of the different nature of the relationship.

The environmental pressure group GOB chose the Berlin fair to draw attention to concerns it has with policies of the regional government. It was chosen because, more than any other audience, GOB wanted to hammer home its message to the Germans. GOB will know that German environmental consciousness has traditionally been stronger than in other European countries. When TUI, a German company of course, makes the big deal that it does about ecologically sound hotels being an important sales point, it is referring mainly to the German market. Green matters were matters in Germany well before they were in the UK.

What happened in Berlin last week has not, however, put Mallorca in a terribly good light. Neither GOB nor the Balearics government (for which, read the Partido Popular) covered itself in glory in Berlin in what was a follow-on from a video that GOB had launched just prior to the fair. This video, which features the Mallorcan artist Miguel Barceló, is one in which GOB denounces the import of waste and developments such as Es Trenc. It denounces the government and so the PP.

The tourism minister Carlos Delgado had already criticised GOB for releasing the video and for presenting it at the travel fair. He said that it was irresponsible and could cause harm to the islands. But it was what then happened at the fair that caught the attention of the German media, and it did so because both GOB and the government grossly exaggerated what happened. GOB's representatives planned to raise questions at a press conference which President Bauzá was to attend. It was thought that GOB might also stage a protest. As a consequence, the organisers were told of the possibility and they in turn informed the police who did what police normally do, which is to attend the scene and to ensure control and to keep the peace.

The exaggerations then started to fly. GOB claimed the government had called the police in, when it hadn't. GOB also claimed that there were police "cordons" created at the request of the government and implied that there was some aggression by the German police. There were no cordons and there was no aggression. Had the government then kept quiet and let the matter rest, it might have come out of Berlin with its public relations intact, but it didn't. It insisted that GOB had planned "violent" protests; all three of its representatives. The accusation was exaggerated, hysterical and downright wrong.

GOB may believe that it has succeeded in publicising its gripes with the PP, but, and regardless of what one thinks about waste imports and Es Trenc, Delgado was not wrong in suggesting that its stunts could be harmful. In fact, it probably won't make any difference to German tourism, despite the coverage in the German media, but it might make Germans look askance at politics of the environment in the Balearics. Germans like consensus, it is the cornerstone of their political philosophy. In the Balearics there is no consensus. There never is. And the environment is a subject about which the polemic has no end and which has become as tedious as it is divided. Perhaps it would be better if mouths were just kept shut for a change.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.