Getting to grips with going green
Mallorca’s environment is under threat, but who’s responsible for its protection, asks Jan Edwards
Development or destruction? More often than not this means both. Some view it as necessary in an evolving society; others – and that’s not only environmental eco-warriors – believe it represents a threat to the very character of Mallorca. Change, however, is inevitable, because the island’s growing population requires every more modern facilities, like hospitals and schools. Meanwhile, demand for property outstrips supply, so constructors’ cranes, looming over the skyline, are a familiar feature as new apartment blocks and houses inexorably alter the traditional character of towns and villages.
The transport infrastructure has dramatically changed, too. In little more than a handful of years, we’ve seen the railway line extended to Manacor, the dualling of the Palma-Manacor road and many other assorted highways projects around Palma, the South West and at Puerto de Soller.
These might have made travelling easier, quicker and safer, but they’ve also taken their toll on the environment and landscape.
The face of tourism is also being transformed. Although there are calls for us all to reduce our carbon footprint by flying less, people are prepared to travel as far as Dubai just for a short break and other enticing, long-haul holiday destinations are emerging fast to compete with Mallorca’s long-established holiday industry.
With a century of tourism under its belt and dependence on this sector, Mallorca has to modernise, enhance and diversify its tourism ‘product’; the economic benefits, brought by around nine million visitors annually, are at stake.
One of the island’s undoubted successes is ‘agrotourism’, introduced at the end of the 1980s. With its appeal to those choosing tranquility and rural pleasures over beach resorts and nightlife, its popularity has helped regenerate Mallorca’s countryside and villages.
Golf tourism, however, attracts controversy. It’s a growing sector across Spain and Mallorca wants its share of this lucrative market, in part to boost trade in the off-season winter months.
But there are many who question whether the revenue generated from golf courses – €167-million in 2006 – compensates for the resulting environmental damage, citing the demand on precious water resources and impact on the natural habitats of the island’s flora and fauna. With 23 golf courses at last count, some want to call a halt to further golfing developments. The Balearic Group of Ornithology and Defence of Nature, GOB, is currently campaigning for the protection of Son Bosc, an area of high biodiversity in the municipality of Muro.
The local council has been approached for a licence to create a new golf course there, but – GOB argues – Son Bosc should be protected, as it is home to the only European colony of rare, robust orchids and the habitat of around 121 bird species.
Environmental groups like GOB are on a conservation mission, but what are the politicians doing?
Following local government elections last May, the Balearic Ministry of Environment was reorganised into six departments, each tackling different aspects of the subject. The Minister, Miquel Àngel Grimault, is on record as saying that his policy would concentrate "on the progressive introduction of criteria for sustainability in the Balearic society, to assure an appropriate economic, social and natural development."
Currently, around 40 per cent of Mallorca is protected by the Ley de Espacios Naturales, introduced in the 1990s, and, over the last decade, more areas have been declared parques naturales. To add further impetus, the Balearic Government has stated its intention to buy up large finca estates for preservation, with funding from the national government.
Another goal is the planting of a million trees throughout the Balearics over "the next few years"… an environmentally admirable idea, but startlingly ambitious.
Sustainable tourism is, however, a major agenda issue. Last year at the Reisepavillon in Stuttgart – Germany’s annual fair for alternative and sustainable tourism – Grimault promoted the environmental management system implemented by more than 60 Balearic hotels, to reduce energy, water use and waste production. But, I have to ask, shouldn’t every hotel be doing this?
Summer environmental advertising campaigns, seemingly aimed at visitors, will raise awareness of issues such as water conservation, forest fires and litter. But often it’s the islanders themselves who appear to lack respect for their surroundings. Refuse discarded in the countryside is a frequent sight and it certainly wouldn’t have been a tourist who dumped the redundant commercial chest freezer I spotted in hillside shrubbery beneath the path leading to Castell d’Alaró. Our coastline and sea are also under siege. In the past couple of years, jellyfish have become a growing menace, because their natural predator, the marine turtle, has been seriously reduced in numbers by man-made pollutants, particularly discarded plastic bags.
Every year, shocking quantities of rubbish are removed from the Mediterranean around our island. Like golf, nautical tourism has its detractors, who blame marine pollution on leisure boaters and the expansion in the number of marinas. But it’s an extremely valuable sector – worth €460-million alone to the Balearics in 2006 – so it makes sense to encourage more environmental-friendly practices. One example has been the introduction of a number of ecological buoys, to which boats can anchor without damaging the underwater posidonia meadows and their fragile ecosystems. More than 13,000 boats used these last year.In reality, Mallorca’s environmental challenges are not unique to this island and are part of the world’s Big Issues of climate change and sourcing renewable energy. (In the latter, Mallorca has begun to take advantage of its climate to harness the sun’s energy, with solar farms being established and solar power used in new buildings.)
But the task of sustaining our natural environment cannot be left solely to pressure groups like GOB and politicians. The former have limited resources – depending heavily on volunteers – and politicians the world over cannot be relied on to deliver on all their promises.
So, it’s time to acknowledge and address our own environmentally-damaging actions.
At this time of the year, many of us spring clean our homes. This year, how about spring cleaning our lifestyles, too, and devising our own ‘environmental management system’ for our homes and businesses? In this information age, learning how to implement a greener lifestyle is as simple as surfing the Web. Let’s protect Mallorca – and our planet – now, while we still can. It’s down to each and every one of us.
