Tag Archives: Politics

Innovative ants

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One hundred thousand years ago, life must have been very different from today. Humans at that time were still a gathering species and moved nomadically across the land.

Without a fixed place to live and without the entertainment we have now, we can assume that our ancestors spent a great deal of time observing nature. They were familiar with the movement of the stars, the signs that marked atmospheric changes, and the annual cycles of life.

They surely noticed ants, the different tasks they perform and the way they organize colonies of thousands or hundreds of thousands of individuals. Furthermore, they likely discovered that ants cultivate fungi, which they nourish with food.

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Positive administrative silence for legalization on rural land is overturned

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The Balearic Parliament has just removed positive administrative silence in the legalization of buildings on rural land. The GOB attributes this to the appeal that was filed at the time before the Constitutional Court. Uncertainty now arises regarding the works that may have been legalized using this mechanism.

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Manifesto against Overcrowding and Proposals for Course Correction

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Many people have asked to see the analysis of the issues that was read at last Saturday’s gathering on the 13th at the Biosphere Square, as well as the proposals that were put forward.

In response to this repeated request, we are providing the full text that was read. We hope it will help clarify concepts, improve conversations and seek real solutions.

We also hope it will help counter repeated attempts to divert attention to other issues, or to show that this is not an all-or-nothing debate. We are calling for limits to be placed on certain dynamics that are getting out of control and generating multiple negative effects.

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Via Menorca demonstration, also against precariousness

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On Saturday the 13th we will also attend the demonstration at Plaça de la Biosfera to protest against the growing economic precariousness. As tourism volume has increased, the island’s GDP per capita has decreased. We are on a path that does not point to a pleasant future, and a change of direction must be demanded.

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Residents 1, Urban developments 0 – 13/06/26

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It is difficult to get people who are spending a few days on holiday to understand that the place they are visiting has water problems. Perhaps they could get an idea if the surrounding context suggested it, but that is not the case.

The progressive loss of drinking water in Menorca is directly related to the economic development model that is being promoted. The resident population is making efforts to reduce consumption, but spending is increasing in tourist areas.

On Saturday, June 13, at 7:30 p.m., a protest action has been called in Biosphere Square in Maó. A great deal is at stake for the immediate future. Please help spread the call.

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Sustainable distortion

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Almost 40 years have passed since the concept of sustainable development was spread worldwide by the United Nations. However, fears about the distortion of the term have gradually come true, and there are still people who equate it with sustained growth.

Ancient philosophers already said that when words lose their meaning, citizens lose their freedom.

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I would like to return to Menorca: 13/06/26

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Official statistics show that Menorca has grown by 80% in the number of tourists over the last 15 years. Increasing overcrowding is not a feeling, it is a reality that is degrading the island in various ways. We already know that this path leads to the models of Ibiza and Mallorca.

But there are people who do not accept this destiny and will take to the streets to protest on Saturday 13 June, at 7.30 pm, at Plaça Biosfera in Maó. This is a new call by Via Menorca, the campaign that aims for the island to once again find a differentiated path, as it had for many years.

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Profitable devotion

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The world is a combination of many viewpoints. Each person focuses on the part that seems most suggestive to them.

Some read the islets surrounding the main island as laboratories of evolution, where the original lizard has taken on its own colours and learned surprising survival strategies, but for others they are potential hunting grounds.

In the past, those who managed to kill one of the last specimens of the monk seal took photographs, proud of an achievement that today we interpret as testimony to the extinction of a spectacular species from our seas.

Cultures and geographies shape the way we see what surrounds us. There was a time when the habit of understanding life as an experience decided by an ethereal and external being began to give way to more empirical interpretations. In the end, it seems that we have chosen to replace the gods of the past with the economic religion.

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‘Not even the cove, which was my world’: 13/06/26

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The romantic failure sung about in la balada d’en Lucas (Lucas’s ballad) includes a lament for the loss of values and identity that tourism-driven development caused on the Costa Brava. It is a song sung with deep feeling in Menorca as well, a land that is also being harmed by the impact of mass tourism.

On Saturday, 13 June, a protest event is being organised against the direction the island has been taking in recent times. No one who wants a dignified future for Menorca should be missing.

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Encouraging fires in natural areas

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A new legislative amendment has been presented by the Partido Popular proposing changes to the Law on the Conservation of Environmentally Relevant Areas of the Balearic Islands (LECO). With the amendment to Article 52, deliberate fires of arboreal forest mass inside protected natural areas would no longer be considered an infringement.

As will be recalled, a few days ago the GOB made public parliamentary initiatives by the same political group to allow hunting on islets and other sites of high natural value. Now, some additional measures of particular gravity are being added. Eliminating or reducing sanctions for those who intentionally burn protected forests implies conveying to public opinion a highly dangerous sense of impunity.

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