Views: 106
The issues of access to housing and the touristification of urban centers will be the focus of the next participatory action by the Via Menorca platform. The event is scheduled for Tuesday, August 20th, at 7 PM, in the Plaça de la Catedral of Ciutadella.
The activity will create a human embrace around much of the old town of Ciutadella as a call to halt the loss of rights and identity.
Continue reading August 20: Take part in the popular embrace of Ciutadella’s Old Town
Views: 156
The Via Menorca campaign made history this past weekend by moving to a real beach: from Cala en Turqueta, we envisioned and organized a change of course for Menorca.
Early on Saturday morning, July 27th, a group of 250 people coordinated to meet at the parking lot of this beach, filling it with residents’ cars for about six hours. The gathering continued on the beach, where participants crafted various messages on the sand using towels and their own bodies. These images were used to convey to the world the concern of a significant portion of the Menorcan population about the island’s increasing overcrowding.
Continue reading Cala en Turqueta Advocates for a New Path for Menorca
Views: 74
Finding well-prepared and willing staff to work hard in a summer restaurant has become an odyssey. Let’s take a family establishment that has been running for years as an example. Operating from morning breakfasts to evening dinners requires a staff that is constantly in crisis. This led to a business reevaluation that turned out to be virtuous.
Views: 145
Recent news reports indicate that Menorca has over 10,000 swimming pools. Given this large number, it is necessary to address how to prevent water loss caused by evaporation due to sun and wind exposure on such vast surfaces.
Continue reading Reducing Pool Evaporation: A Duty for Menorca
Views: 229
Last Saturday, the 8th, the Biosphere Square in Maó, where the headquarters of the Island Council is located, was filled with an outcry against the growing tourist overcrowding of the island.
It is highly recommended to read the demands that were raised in the manifesto, because they argue the reasons for the mobilization and go in step with the usual textbook criticism made about these acts.
Continue reading Read the manifesto against the overcrowding of tourism in Menorca
Views: 287
The urgency to take measures to stop the growing overcrowding from which Menorca has been suffering in the last few years has been the focus of GOB’s intervention at a Plenary session of the Consell Insular in March. The president of GOB, Margarida Masferrer, explained the problems that are being experienced and the worrying announcements that are heard from public institutions.
Views: 232
The debate on limiting the number of vehicles that accumulate in Menorca during the summer is an issue in which public interest grows year to year with the increase in number of tourists and subsequent overcrowding.
The example of Formentera has achieved very satisfactory results showing positive aspects both in mobility and in tourist improvements (that we will talk about in greater detail in a future article).
Continue reading Limiting the number of vehicles (1): data from Menorca
Views: 190
Maria Tudurí Sintes has been designated, unanimously by the jury, the winner of the 2023 Pere Prats Prize for the Environment.
The jury considered that Maria Tudurí has all the qualities that deserve the award of the 2023 Pere Prats Prize for the Environment, based on her career, for being a woman of initiative, and an entrepreneur with drive that has known how to develop in a traditionally male world. Continue reading Maria Tudurí Sintes, winner of the Pere Prats Prize for the Environment
Views: 509
To Mr Gabriel Escarrer
It has recently been published that the Melià company, owner of the large hotels at Son Bou, has changed directors. You, Gabriel Escarrer, son, have taken over as director from Gabriel Escarrer, father. We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your new role and wish you every success.
As you surely know, in Menorca we have a certain argument over one of your establishments. We thought that, now, at the beginning of this new position, it would be useful to explain to you the reasons for the disagreements that GOB has over the modernisation project for the hotels at Son Bou that your company is trying to process on our Island.
In the seventies, on the largest beach of Menorca, two towers were built with 12 floors that had some constructions added to the sides and made into a hotel given the singular name of Milanos-Pingüinos. The Melià Company acquired it some years ago and, in 2017, presented a project to modernise the building.
The supposed improvement is not accompanied by a reduction in guest places, as might be expected, but plans to maintain the current number of 1,140, most of which function as “all included”.
In summary, the action that your company wishes to carry out means maintaining the current height of the towers cutting only 428 square meters off a corner between floors 9 and 12 and adding a lot of new volume (6,000 square meters) between the ground floor and the seventh floor. This will mean affecting the landscape because now, at least, the sea can be seen between the towers, but with the new project, it would be screened off.
In addition, it is proposed to double the swimming pools area, the intention being to make 2,245 square meters available for them on a plot of land that is on the first line, less than 90 meters from the sea.
These figures, Mr Escarrer, seem to sit badly with the sustainability declaration that your company makes and with the promises announced in its publications.
We cannot quite understand how the energy consumption of the establishment could be made, how to imagine that the objectives announced for the Agenda 2030 can be completed, nor how the improvement in the water footprint could be achieved, if the hotel were to be enlarged, the number of guest places maintained and the swimming pools doubled.
We explain all this to you because we know that it is common for the top management not to know the details of the information published by their company. For example, you may not be aware that they boast making a reduction in carbon emissions of 51% (which is a huge percentage) but the example used is for 2020 (the year of the pandemic when all the world came to a standstill.)
Mr Escarrer, we think that you have a golden opportunity to show your real commitment to an island like this, a Reserve of the Biosphere. You have the possibility to present a new project that adapts to the current urban parameters, of a ground floor with two more levels thus freeing Menorca of one of the worst attacks made on its coastal landscape.
When deciding, keep in mind that GOB has repeatedly written to the Alaior Town Council warning them that the hotels are in an illegal position, as confirmed by several court reports commissioned by the Council. There is not sufficient area in the plot of land.
Recently, our entity, with the help of many people, has filed a lawsuit against the group that has tried adding square meters to legalise the hotel. It seems that in so doing they have taken green areas but, even so, the enlarged area is insufficient.
Depending on the result of this litigation, it will also be possible to see the degree of responsibility of those people who worked to stop any prior consultation of the documents, who prepared reports and gave the orders to carry out manoeuvres that are now being analysed in detail by the lawyers and designated experts.
These are some of the issues inherited from the past. However, you are starting a new period and perhaps could make things happen differently. In our opinion, companies can play a very active role in restructuring for the world’s needs. If at any time you would like to discuss this matter directly, you would be welcome to get in touch.
Yours sincerely,
GOB Menorca
Views: 262
Four years of paralysis for ignoring the environmental laws
In Cala Corb, on the southern pavement of the Port of Maó works for connecting the pavement with the Moll d’en Pons, have been stopped for four years.
The reason was that the procedure used by the Port Authority awarded work consisting of a cantilevered walkway and suddenly, without any formalities or prior authorisation, it was turned into a construction dock with dozens of trucks emptying rocks into the sea.
A cantilevered walkway attached to the rock-face has hardly any effect on the marine environment, but, obviously, tons and tons of rocks being poured into the sea will transform its environment radically.
Any land subject to European laws, for some decades past, before causing such a transformation such as this, first commissions an environmental impact study, to know what values exist and to see if things can be done in such a way that cause the least loss of natural values.
A significant environmental impact
However, the Port Authority maintains that, as Maó is a State port, the environmental impact law does not apply, it has validity, they say, only in areas that have regional jurisdiction.
State regulation, however, is applicable over protected species. So, if works end up affecting a protected species, then there is a cumbersome terrain of reports, potential sanctions and specific authorisations. This is what has occurred at Cala Corb.
The dumping of rocks without control seriously affected a colony of protected coral that has been practically devastated. Had this been done by an individual, they would have been fined and in danger of being prosecuted through criminal channels.
Before a fait acompli, it was necessary to wait for a resolution from the corresponding ministerial department that had undertaken to contract a scientific service to move the remains of the coral to another part of the Maó port. Four years of paralysis and added costs for not wanting to realise that environmental laws are the same as others.
A new threat to the northern walkway: works and desalination plants
Recently, the Port Authority has put the management out to tender of the moorings by the northern walkway (the area known as s’Altra Banda) as well as those attached to the Isla del Rey.
Having consulted the specifications it can be deduced that whoever takes on the concession could significantly increase the number of moorings and, consequently, the areas where new installations could be put. To the 390 moorings that there are now, could be added another 250.
This intention contradicts two important points. In the first place, it implies adding a large number of new boats when Menorca has a study of the nautical load capacity of the island that was already saturated more than 10 years ago.
The second point is that it means altering new areas where no studies of the natural values have been presented.
The tender specifications also allow for installing various small desalination plants to provide water for the boats. But, there is no explanation for what is planned for the salt water generated by the desalination plants and it is not necessary to be very perceptive in deducing that it will be poured into the port itself which will significantly alter the natural environment.
The Port of Maó is a natural port
The large marine area that provides safe anchorage for Maó is a natural port that houses protected species and that offers important biological functions. The dynamic that tries to continue growth each year with new infrastructures and, furthermore, without doing previous studies on any environmental impact, serves to provide the basis for new environmental conflicts.
GOB has asked that any new pontoons are constructed with a system of “piles and fingers” (rather than with concrete blocks and chains) in order to better protect the seabed. They also requested that priority on waiting lists for a mooring be given to boats of traditional construction, with sail or electric drive motor.
It was also requested that no increases be made for moorings near areas where there is seafood, since water in a good condition is required and it is important to maintain economic diversification within the port.
Acting with a vision for the future
The proposal from GOB is that the orientation of the Port of Maó is focussed on improving the quality of its nautical services as well as improving shipyard boat maintenance and not on increasing the number of boats in the sea.
The level of the nautical saturation now seen in many of the coves during the summer, as well as the need to recover environmental values that have been lost due to excesses committed in the last decades, leads us to ask for a new commitment that is not based on quantity but on quality.
