Last week to submit photographs to the Maó Harbour Photography Competition

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The Maó Harbour Narrative Photography Competition is entering its final stage. The competition, promoted by the Recuperem el Port de Maó campaign, will close its submission period next 15 September. There is therefore just over a week left to go out and photograph the bay and submit your images.

These days, during the Festes de Gràcia, people joyfully sing the city’s anthem. In honour of the verse that mentions the harbour as an essential part of Maó, we encourage everyone to go out for a walk and photograph this “puerto de mar a pie”.

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Amendments for a Coastal Law that sets limits on pressure on the coast

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The draft Balearic Islands Coastal Law does not specify what happens when uses come into conflict with ecological limits. The islands are territories under strong pressure along their coast, with many areas clearly exceeding their limits. Amendments are also included regarding the new attempt to amend the Menorca Biosphere Reserve Law. GOB has submitted amendments during the period in which organisations can do so.

The transfer of various powers to the autonomous community in matters concerning the coast allows the archipelago to regulate coastal management again. This is an opportunity to reduce pressures, restore degraded areas or adapt to the effects of climate change. In GOB’s opinion, the current text of the draft Law is very much focused on planning, organising and managing uses, activities and occupations, but it is not always sufficiently clear what happens when these uses come into conflict with the limits.

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Carrying Capacity Failure

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In the 1980s, in the midst of the debate over whether Menorca should become a Biosphere Reserve, there were already warnings about the oxymoron implied by “sustainable growth”. Permanent growth in limited territories cannot be sustained over time without paying a high price. Lately, we have been witnessing the revival of this debate.

Forty years later, there are still those who present sustainable growth as a solution, sometimes through a lack of reflection but often to greenwash the cement and asphalt of a lifetime.

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Ciutadella, Sant Lluís and Es Mercadal receive the new tourist places

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In the midst of a water crisis and in a situation of tourism saturation, the governing team of the Island Council of Menorca continues to promote measures that increase human pressure on the island.

The approximately 800 tourist places that the Council has reactivated, violating the tourism moratorium through the subterfuge of a temporary pool, particularly affect Ciutadella, Sant Lluís and Es Mercadal.

It is worth bearing in mind that these municipalities have for years been the main recipients of tourist population and, therefore, some of the territories most affected by the situation of the aquifers. In fact, the unbalanced relationship between the pressure exerted by a tourist and that of a resident becomes even more evident when we focus on water consumption. While a resident in a traditional population centre consumes an average of 180 to 200 litres of water per day, a tourist staying in a residential development can consume between 800 and 1,000 litres per day.

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The mistake of the tourist accommodation places pool

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GOB has asked the Island Council to abandon the use of the tourist accommodation places pool and to require guarantees of water availability for any new tourist concession that is made.

As is well known, the Island Council of Menorca resorted to a subterfuge to avoid the moratorium on tourist accommodation places that has been decreed in the Balearic Islands. The Prohens regional government, which in tourism matters has become characterised by making its discourse point in one direction and its actions in the opposite direction, enabled a way of bypassing the aforementioned moratorium.

It is a mechanism that collects tourist places that are voluntarily deregistered or have been inactive over the last three years, and puts them back on the market. These are tourist places that have ceased to operate, that are inactive, that were not operating. Removing them would not imply any kind of compensation for their former holders.

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The Water Crisis in Menorca: Es Mercadal

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The water supplied for the ordinary needs of the municipality of Es Mercadal comes from groundwater abstractions from the Sa Roca (1902M1) groundwater body. Piezometers show a downward trend since 2012.

According to data provided by the Water Resources Department and published by OBSAM, the s’Albaida aquifer had an average level of 41 metres above sea level in 2011. In 2025, the recorded level is 30 metres. These figures mean that the aquifer has lost 25% of its capacity in just 15 years.

Over the last decade, of the 13 monitoring points installed, 5 show a stable trend and 8 show a declining or sharply declining trend. None shows signs of recovery.

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Summer family activities at the Wildlife Recovery Centre

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This summer, on Tuesdays between 28 July and 18 August, the Wildlife Recovery Centre invites you to enjoy four evenings full of discoveries, games and learning for the whole family. A fun, educational and participatory programme to get to know Menorca’s wildlife better and spend an enjoyable time together—especially for children!

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Infinitists and Fatalists

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The world is drifting off course for two main reasons. On the one hand, there are those who fail to understand that the planet is finite. On the other, there are those who constantly spread pessimism. To make our way between the two, we need inspiration (hope), organisation (capacity) and a timetable (perseverance).

In today’s society, flat-earthers are not the majority. The majority are infinitists: people who believe we live in a world without limits. That is why they celebrate the usual indicators of ever-growing consumption.

Without accepting that the planet is finite, a society based on permanent growth inevitably creates major environmental impacts, which ultimately lead to profound inequalities and enormous imbalances.

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Call for Water in Menorca: Ciutadella

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Menorca’s aquifers are going through one of the most delicate moments in their recorded history. Ciutadella is the municipality with the highest urban water consumption (and probably rural consumption as well) on the island. GOB has requested information from the Town Council to find out how this increasingly depleted resource is being managed.

Menorca’s aquifers are one of the island’s invisible treasures. Without them, the landscape would not be the same, nor would the quality of life resemble what it is today. This is a matter that deserves serious attention, as water reserves are currently at historic lows.

For these reasons, GOB is launching several initiatives focused on water.

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Call for Water in Menorca: Es Migjorn Gran and Ferreries

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Menorca’s aquifers are going through one of the most delicate moments in their recorded history. The municipalities of Ferreries and Es Migjorn Gran record the highest percentage of losses in their water distribution networks. GOB has requested information to find out how this problem is being managed.

The official position is that desalination plants will solve the island’s water problems. But this has long been the strategy followed in Mallorca and Ibiza. When the condition of the aquifers on the neighbouring islands is examined, it becomes clear that desalination plants have not been used to reduce groundwater extraction, but rather to support continued urban and tourism growth. That is the reality.

For this reason, it is argued that unless limits are agreed beforehand, desalination plants become a passport to a model that exploits the territory and promotes an extractive economy.

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Conscientious Ecology