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.

The Man Who Invented Sun And Beach

One of the favoured acronyms that Mallorca's town halls baffle us all with is the PGOU. It stands for Plan General de Ordenación Urbana (or Urbanística). Essentially, it is the grand design for a municipality's urban planning. Go to many a town hall website or to a town hall's planning department, and you will discover this plan. It will be colour-coded according to various purposes: the whole of the municipality mapped plot by plot dependent on what function the land has.

In very general terms the plan will follow three basic guidelines: land already developed, land that could be developed and land that cannot be (in theory if not always in practice). This template is sixty years old this year. It has been worked over and adapted during this time, town hall administrations of differing hues amending the colours of the codes in line with their own colours (as is happening at present).

The first ever global PGOU was for Spain as a whole (there had been a specific one for Madrid ten years before). Guidelines were to be ones followed by provincial, city, town and village administrations (there weren't regional authorities as such in those days). This first plan came under what was known as the Land Law, a classic example of how the highly centralised regime under Franco operated. The vast country of Spain with its enormous diversity was to be plotted and planned in accordance with central diktat. It was, but only up to a point. More remote parts of the country didn't always observe the rules. You can probably guess at least one part of Spain where the rules were not always followed according to the letter of the law.

The 1956 plan was to prove to be significant, not least because the acronym has remained in use ever since. It was significant in another way because of its chief architect. In the history of Spain's tourism there was a man known far more for a different innovation, one which, bizarrely enough, was to contribute to his becoming a trusted member of the Franco regime. He was Pedro Zaragoza. The mayor of Benidorm from 1950 to 1967, if things had turned out differently, he wouldn't have been the architect of the plan. Nor might Benidorm have become what it is. Nor might Mallorca's resorts have become what they are.

Zaragoza was the mayor who first permitted the wearing of bikinis on beaches. There were then rules on what could be worn on beaches and the bikini was the last thing that Spanish women would have worn. But Zaragoza didn't have local women in mind. He was interested in foreign women and foreign tourists. He involved himself directly in promoting Benidorm as a holiday destination. It was he who was largely attributed with coming up with "sun and beach" as a phrase and also with the notion of "bottled sun".

The story of the bikini is one of the most famous in Spain's tourism history. It might be an exaggeration to say that it changed everything, but Zaragoza's initiative most certainly led to a gradual relaxation of attitudes that was to contribute to the eventual boom. The story is as famed as it is because Zaragoza was denounced by the Guardia Civil and then threatened with excommunication by the church. Undeterred, he went right to the top. He met Franco and the bikinis of Benidorm were permitted, as was a local bylaw under which anyone insulting a woman for wearing one would be fined.

In 2014, a short film comedy was made about this famous meeting. Entitled "Bikini", it is now available on YouTube. It is of course in Spanish but even if one is unfamiliar with the language, the comedy comes through, such as when Franco is attempting to determine what the bikini top actually entails. There is of course some licence but the film is pretty faithful to what happened, such as Zaragoza having travelled all the way to Madrid on his Vespa: Franco was not wholly impressed by his using an Italian scooter.

Zaragoza didn't meet the Generalissimo solely to plead his case for the bikini. It was when Franco was shown the numbers - the potential revenues from a new brand of tourism - that he came round to Zaragoza's arguments. He, Franco, was convinced, but someone else needed convincing - his wife, Carmen. Zaragoza had another idea - the Benidorm Festival of Spanish Song. The bikini was in the bag.

This was no liberal. Zaragoza was a Falangist and it was his orthodoxy that eventually led him to the regime's inner circle and to the creation of the land plan. Had the meeting turned out differently, who can say how developments might have been. The plan was to be the template for Benidorm, the Costas and for Mallorca, as also and as importantly was the bikini.

MALLORCA TODAY - Formentor development reverts to permissive regulation

The plan to develop the Formentor urbanisation in Pollensa, which includes additions to the Hotel Formentor, will now take on the appearance of regulations regarding urban planning that existed over 20 years ago. The Balearics High Court has quashed a decision of 2008 in respect of the tourism development quota in the town and so the development, much debated for years, will now go ahead.

See more: Ultima Hora