Tag Archives: Preservation

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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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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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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The Wildlife Recovery Centre opens its doors to the public this summer

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From Wednesday, 1 July, nature lovers and those interested in Menorca’s wildlife will have the opportunity to visit the Wildlife Recovery Centre. Until 12 September, the Centre will be open to the public from Monday to Saturday, from 6 p.m. until sunset.

The Centre is located within the Pedreres de s’Hostal de Lithica, on the Camí Vell de Ciutadella, km 1. This privileged location allows visitors to enjoy an impressive natural setting while discovering the crucial work carried out to recover local wildlife.

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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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14 June – Open day at the Menorca Wildlife Recovery Centre

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The Menorca Wildlife Recovery Centre will open its doors to the public this Sunday, 14 June, for a special open day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., as part of the conservation and environmental awareness activities it carries out throughout the year. The Centre operates under an agreement between GOB Menorca and the Consortium for Wildlife Recovery (COFIB), with the supervision of the Balearic Government’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Natural Environment.

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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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Narrative photography contest on the Port of Maó

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The Recuperem el Port de Maó campaign has launched a narrative photography contest with the aim of giving visibility to the environmental, social and heritage pressures that threaten the values still preserved in the natural harbour of Port of Maó.

The initiative has the collaboration of the Balearic Sea Conservation Audiovisual Contest MARE, and invites the public to look at the port with critical and sensitive eyes and to explain, through photography, the processes of transformation and deterioration affecting the bay. The contest does not seek only aesthetic images, but photographs capable of narrating a reality and generating reflection.

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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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