Unfinished Symphony: Albufera

Two in the morning. Save for the Saturday-into-Sunday night birds that swoop along the main road to and from the clubs and bars of the north and who create their sampling of engine rush and techno from the in-car system, the nights are quiet. With the arrival of May, the music of the machines will start to become unrelenting. But for now, there is motor silence. Not that there is silence.

During the day, it is hard to tell what noises come from Albufera. Those which there are, are usually drowned out by the incessant traffic. At night, it is a different matter. Amidst the quietness of the road, there is only one man-made sound that comes intermittently; the throb and sometimes roar of the Es Murterar power station, a rumbling synthesizer that conveys a mood music of mystery, an industrial electronica that is aurally surreal when set against the other sounds – those of the nature park. In April, in springtime, the sounds of Albufera build up, they are constant, always changing; they are their own unfinished symphonies.

In the mix of sound and limited vision, to the fore there is the sight of the puff monsters of pines silhouetted against moonlight or the distant lights of Muro and Sa Pobla. They are the maestros, the mute conductors of the orchestras that they hide. Unseen, in the pit of Albufera, whole string, horn and percussion sections stay up all night and play for a sleeping audience. They are the phantoms of an opera that the puff monsters mask.

It is too early for the crickets. In summer, they come to dominate, with their drum-box rhythms. For now, it is the marsh frogs that are the main percussion. It is subdued, understated at present. As the weeks pass, the frogs’ chorus reaches a crescendo before being supplanted by the crickets in this unending and cyclical opus.

The music of the wetlands is variously symphonic, jazz orchestra or an ambient soundscape dreamt from the imagination of Brian Eno or Philip Glass. The syncopation of the frogs is a rapid chatter of scat drumming over which wails an improvised, viola screech of a startled barn owl or over which is the high-pitched piping blast of a scops owl. This jam session with its shifting members can bring the single, irregular hoot of a different owl, a sonic bleep that rises and falls as though it were being spun around on a radar screen.

The counterpoint to the melodies of nightingales and even robins are the crow-like bursts of a night heron on its discordant Ornette Coleman sax or the comedic intermezzo of a duck disturbed into a deranged trumpeting. The party animals that fly-dance to the tunes of the Albufera night club are the bats, darting and diving and ignoring the admonitory stares of the puff monster conductors.

You can sit and listen to all this. You can have a front-row seat for an astonishing concert that costs nothing. But you can’t sit too long. Not before there is a different sound, one of a sawing buzz by the ear. The mosquitoes are alive again and they are giants in spring. The bats are hungry, thankfully. They do their best, but there are only so many mosquitoes they can eat as though they were chomping on their equivalent of popcorn taken into the auditorium for the Albufera concert.

As the night orchestra quietens around dawn, so a different shift takes over. There are over hundred different types of bird in Albufera at present, some that are there all the time, like the hoopoe which joins with the bats in being a natural destroyer of the nasty. For the hoopoe, it is the moth of the processionary caterpillar. Other birds are passing through, one or two are there by accident, such as the golden eagle. And most announce themselves as dawn comes, when they can be heard because the road is nearly always silent. Just at the moment.

The sights of Albufera, during the daytime when it can be seen, are what attracts, but there is a different attraction. What can’t be seen but can only be heard. At night. The unfinished symphony of Albufera.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

A Gentle Touch Of Colic: Senses working overtime

“All I could hear was the strange hum that hovered behind every other sound throughout that summer.”Tim Pears, “In The Place Of Fallen Leaves”.

What are the sounds of summer? The bass from a system pulsating across vast acres of Mallorcan land as the local fiesta turns its back on tradition and admits DJ Headcase and a legion of party-goers, tanked up from the botellón. The Canadair growling low as it transports its Mediterranean payload towards smoking finca land that some fire-starter has thoughtfully taken a cigarette end to. Joni Mitchell’s hissing of summer lawns, gyrating tops and spikes of water thrown around erratically and splattering the persianas. The enthusiastic keep-fitter on morning reveille duty, bellowing across a hotel pool and coaxing lard buckets with hangovers into movements more suited to the Rocky Horror Show.

But there, in the background, is the hum. In summer you can only detect it when the general silence briefly descends, usually at eight minutes past five in the morning. Earlier or later, and you’ll miss it, thanks to the almost constant whoosh and splutter of coaches, motos or autos on what is the most densely populated part of Europe when it comes to car ownership. The power station hum. It’s always there, as ominous as the chimney that rises above the nature park of Albufera.

The sounds of Mallorca are part of the sensory overload that the island lovingly bestows. What are the smells of summer? A grill wafting succulently and charcoaled as evening evaporates into night, the unexpected fragrance like vanilla from an unidentified plant, the sulphuric combustion of marsh gas and the insidious stench of sewage. The latter is at its most extreme when Colis comes a-calling: the drain-unblocking people who can inspire a stomach-churning or cramping retch.

But strangely you become inured to malodorousness. You don’t exactly crave it but you are reassured by its mysterious presence, the unseen force of a primeval chemical reaction, albeit one sometimes influenced artificially or orificially. The bad smells form a nasal entertainment; they are their own tribute acts to an ecological and semi-ecological world that created the island in the first place and its second, industrialised and urbanised life.

A bit of a pong is not to be sniffed at. It’s a reminder that not everything is or should be sanitised. Mallorca doesn’t deserve to be sterilised, scrubbed and sealed hermetically. Its very imperfections are what give rise to its perfections or near-perfections, those revealed through the other senses – the sight through the transparent light of Pollensa that inspired the local post-impressionists; the radiance of white, rose or russet-bracted bougainvillaea but with its duplicitous enticement to touch the shock of its thorns; the ambrosial taste of a fig during its all too brief harvesting period.

The sights, sounds and other senses of Mallorca are too easily defined in terms of the superficiality of brochure-style beautifulness, but they ignore what can be a natural or part-natural, maleficent intoxication – that of the Mallorca that isn’t quite right, an environmental quirkiness that should be bottled, if only anyone could stomach the Colical, great smell of sewage. And then there’s that hum. The power station’s isn’t actually the only one. From Albufera, if you listen carefully when the traffic abates, you can hear a regular murmur in the darkness beyond the puff monsters of pines silhouetted against the distant lights of Muro and Sa Pobla. It’s always there, just as the smells are always there.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Summer’s Off: Albufera’s information centre

‘Tis the season to be closed. A while ago we had the museum in Alcúdia shut because of lack of staff. The swimming pool in Puerto Pollensa you know about. And to add to this we also have the information centre in the Albufera nature park. It has in fact been closed since the beginning of June.

The “centro de interpretación”, as opposed to the reception, which remains open, is intended to offer audiovisual information, posters and other material related to the flora and fauna of Albufera. It is also intended to allow visitors who have coughed up for the “tarjeta verde” (green card) the chance to hire bikes and binoculars. There have been, apparently, complaints from tourists who, card in hand, find neither an information centre nor a bike.

So why is it closed? Good question. It would seem that it’s all the fault of the tourism ministry or maybe it’s the fault of our old mates the Fundación Balears Sostenible which is meant to run the centre. This is the same foundation which, to the horror of the new director when he was installed, was found to have somehow managed to have “leaked” the minor matter of three million euros. It’s not the fault of the environment ministry which blames the tourism ministry which in turn blames the foundation which in turn blames political reasons. And on and on we go. The environment ministry staffs the reception centre and wants to be allowed to run the information centre. Not to be left out, enviro watchdogs GOB have attacked the foundation for its management of the centre, which does rather suggest that the fault does indeed lie with them. (GOB, incidentally, is wanting something else closed – the power station in Alcúdia, but this is a whole other story.)

The foundation is not directly part of the tourism ministry, but it is linked and is meant to be being wrapped up into an über-agency. Its main purpose in life is operating the green card, something that is likely to be abandoned through lack of interest, except to a few saps in Playa de Muro who get one, only to find it’s of no use. You may recall that the money the card was planned to raise has been singularly unforthcoming, partly because hotels have, allegedly, been pocketing it all.

What we seem to have here is a case of too many cooks unable to gather the ingredients to make a broth. Why does it appear to be so difficult? Albufera, and all aspects of its management, should be under one authority alone. But no. We get competing bodies who conspire to balls things up. It’s a metaphor for much of Mallorcan public administration.

Underlying this is the fact that nature parks such as Albufera, bird-watching and wildlife are all supposed to be part of tourism diversification, especially in the north of the island. The tourism bods keep banging on about it, but they – and other agencies – can’t even organise a look-up centre in a watery briery. So what chance, therefore, of any of this “new” tourism succeeding? Very little, if Albufera is anything to go by.

Weather
Meanwhile. Tenuous link, I suppose, but Albufera houses the local Alcúdia/Muro weather station. And weather has been a tad unusual this summer. Forget all the pony you may come across about excessive temperatures, as it is usually pony. The official take from the Met boys is that there have been no real heatwaves this summer and that the highest temperature – anywhere on the islands – has been 36. So no repeat of last year’s 42.7 (Sa Pobla) or Albufera’s high in July last year of 39.9. But it can still crank up again.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Sign Here: Petition against the golf course

I’ll forgive you for switching off now. It’s the golf course – again.

Still with me? Ok, here goes. All manner of political wrangling has occurred since the subject last appeared on the blog. The might of the centre-right (the Partido Popular and Unió Mallorquina) has combined to pass a motion in parliament to the effect that the Muro course should go ahead, as it is in the interest of the island for it do so. The left has retaliated by attempting to get the Son Bosc finca brought under the auspices of the Costas’ authority, that which “protects” the coastal areas. This despite the fact that the finca isn’t actually by the coast. There is also the matter of the bee-eater bird that breeds on the finca during the summer. This, in itself, is enough to bring any work to a halt.

More than the political to-ing and fro-ing, the environmental group GOB has been soliciting tourist support for the finca to be included as part of the protected area of the Albufera nature park. At the weekend it got tourists coming into Albufera – some 400 or so – to sign a petition against the course. These tourists were then also told about the hotels who were behind the development and given a card to deliver to their hotels (assuming, presumably, they were ones involved in the project) in support of the anti-course position.

What good, frankly, does this do? For one thing, it has the effect of driving a wedge (sand or otherwise) between guests and their hotels. Maybe GOB hopes that the petitioning tourists will go to a different hotel in future. Or a different resort, thanks a lot. Or that the hotels suddenly think: “oh my God, 400 tourists, we must abandon all thought of a golf course”. One imagines not.

Getting some nature-admiring tourists to put their mark on a petition would hardly have been difficult. Visitors to Albufera are, pretty much, a captive market for an environmental campaign. Easy-peasy. One doubts that the tourists were given a balanced argument to consider. Of the 400, nine, apparently, admitted to being golfers, and only one of the nine, a Mallorcan, declined to sign the petition. GOB, as stated in the report from “The Diario”, reckoned this was “curious”. It might also be that the Mallorcan knew a bit more about the story – from both sides.

What was curious about the report was that there was reference to there being hotel companies behind the golf development, but it did not identify them. Why is there such a reluctance to name them? GOB does. Go to its website, and you can discover, under Golf Playa de Muro S.A., the names of hotels associated with Grupotel, Garden and Iberostar. It’s common knowledge in the public domain.

Right, finished that bit, you can switch back on again now.

Still with an environmental theme, let us turn, shall we, to pollution from vehicles, in particular that from buses. And one bus in particular.

Driving along the main road through Puerto Alcúdia yesterday, I was forced to slow down and drop back, for in front was a bus belching out rather unpleasant fumes. You’ll know the one I mean. Blue, tourist, sight-seeing. What a splendid advertisement this is, and how splendid for those that advertise on the bus. Come take a trip around the sights of Alcúdia and hopefully the fumes will blow – volcano like, one might also hope – in the opposite direction; otherwise a no-drive zone should be declared.

To be fair, this is not the only bus that offends in this way. When the older buses get pressed into public service during the season, there are some frightful old boneshakers billowing bluey stuff in their wake. So if you happen to see drivers putting many a metre between themselves and a bus, you will know why. Perhaps pedestrians should be issued with face masks.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Porn-(ge)-ography: Muro’s golf course stopped

Well, what a surprise. The change in regional government that has created the “super” ministry of environment, planning and transport under the control of a single minister, the PSM Mallorcan socialist “Two Jags” Vicens, has indeed had ramifications for the golf course in Muro – as anticipated (20 February: Mallorca’s Two Jags – Muro and the golf course). The ministry, and therefore government, has approved the extension of a planning restriction order involving the Albufera nature park and much of its surroundings, such as the rustic beach of Es Comú in Playa de Muro and the area of Son Bosc, the finca designated for the building of the golf course; an order aimed at stopping changes to the Playa de Muro geography. This order, known as a “Plan de Ordenación de los Recursos Naturales” (PORN), has been welcomed by the enviro pressurists, GOB. They really ought to do something about their acronyms.

The ramifications of this extension are that work on the course has to be suspended, for at least two years, while studies are undertaken into the area’s natural riches and into its preservation. This comes hard on the heels of the publication by GOB of a letter from the leading British botanist, Richard Bateman, which expressed his “incredulity” as to the “destruction” of the finca and which also drew attention to the existence of a fungus that is vital to the maintenance of the rare orchid, which has been the subject of most of the environmental debate related to the golf development.

Incredulity indeed. Incredulity that further studies are needed. It is debatable whether they are needed, other than as a convenience of politics. The PSM, and Two Jags, don’t want the course to go ahead. It’s as simple as that.

Initial clearance work had begun on Son Bosc. The developers (and also the town hall) don’t necessarily see the ministry’s intervention as definitive, and they are probably right. Hanging over this decision is the possibility of an early election for the regional government. It would have to take place next year in any event. Were there to be a change in governmental complexion (with the Partido Popular restored as leaders, which is quite possible), then there is every chance that this latest delay could be reversed. It was the PP which, back in 2003, effectively removed protection for Son Bosc.

So you see, it is all a matter of politics. The new studies are a red herring. The development comes down to the wishes of the PP (and the Unió Mallorquina) against those on the left, the PSM most notably and what has become almost its provisional wing, GOB.

At the same time as the town hall and mayor Fornés were arguing that work on the course should proceed, as reports from the environment ministry had given the development the all-clear, the local authority was also announcing that it has formalised the purchase of the bull-ring in Muro from the entertainment company, Grup Balañà. It will cost 450,000 euros, and the decision to purchase the site has caused consternation among opposition politicians, aghast at such an investment, given the town hall’s supposedly parlous financial situation.

Why is the town hall doing this? There is an argument that the bull-ring is part of the local heritage and so deserves to be preserved. Fair enough, it dates back to 1922. But how often is it used, and for what? There is a bull-fight during the Sant Joan fiesta in June each year, but otherwise the stadium is largely redundant. The town hall insists that there will be more events, such as concerts, but then it would say that. The town hall also believes that it is a tourist attraction and one that would be added to a “tourist route” in Muro. Who are they kidding? Muro does have some attractions, but it barely features on the tourist list of places to visit as those attractions – the church, the museum for example – are poorly promoted. Maybe the town hall reckons that the golfers would make a trip into the town (some ten kilometres from Playa de Muro). That would be wishful thinking. And moreover, no-one has ever actually stated what sort of numbers would be generated by this damn course.

The bull-ring, the golf course, they are both symptomatic of a tendency to conjure up fantasy tourism, maybe-tourism. And in the case of the bull-ring, it is also representative of something – the bull-fight – that is being rejected by increasing numbers of Spaniards and that is abhorrent to many overseas tourists. Heritage, yep, fine, but the ring also occupies some not invaluable real estate near to the centre of Muro. Of course, if the town hall were to acquire it now, then maybe it might become more valuable in the future. Now there’s a thought. Or, if you were a town hall that needs to raise loans, then it is always useful to have some assets on the balance sheet. And which town hall needs to raise loans – allegedly?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Birdland – Cycling and bird-watching in Mallorca

Come on, ‘fess up. Cyclists behaving badly or even behaving well, and do you lose your rag, shout and scream? Does Matthew Parris’s piano wire cross your mind? What if maybe I just give a little nudge with the bumper? No, no, don’t do that. Whatever you do, don’t do that.

Me? I move from ultra polite to ultra pissed off. I will gladly observe the rules, gladly let a line of cyclists enter a roundabout, the only time you are meant to stop on a roundabout. I will even let a lone cyclist come onto a roundabout in front of me, so long as there isn’t a truck about to demolish my boot. I will happily give a wide berth, slow at the central islands where there isn’t sufficient space for car and two-abreast cyclists, even if they are meant to be in single file. I will do all these things. I don’t suffer from road territorialism. It isn’t that. What it is, is when the rules are broken, when the cyclists do what no car driver could get away with – running a red, coming out of an exit that they shouldn’t be, cutting up, or just going the wrong way. But why get so peed off? Does it really matter? Well actually it does, given that the car driver is invariably always at fault if there’s an accident.

The recreational cyclist is not the issue. He or she usually pedals at a sedate speed. He or she can stop easily. It is the pros, the semi-pros, the pretend-pros who get the driver’s goat. The ones who act as they own the roads. Ah yes, own. It’s that territorialism again. And it’s also the provocation, the one that comes from the attire, the dress-code, the lycra. They dress deliberately to antagonise.

But it’s not just on the roads of Alcúdia, Pollensa or Muro that the great cyclist-driver divide occurs. In Dublin, according to a piece in yesterday’s “Sunday Times”, “cyclists are facing a backlash from motorists and pedestrians who claim they are a menace”. The paper reveals police figures for transgressions – 1,847 motorists done for going through a red, 28 cyclists for doing the same. Strangely enough, given the lunatic nature of the Mallorcan driver, I have rarely actually witnessed a driver running a red. I couldn’t tell you how many cyclists I’ve seen doing the same. What I can tell you is how often I’ve seen Trafico dealing with an errant cyclist. Once. A girl went through a red right in front of the patrol vehicle. They could hardly not stop her. But whereas a driver can be easily identified, a cyclist cannot be. They all look the same, all stretched into blue outfits. There may be sponsors’ logos, different colour helmets and so on, but you can’t really pick a cyclist out. And that’s it, the cyclist knows damn well that he or she can get away with it. It’s this that hacks the drivers off.

Bird-watching in Mallorca
“The Bulletin” ran a piece yesterday about a book that has been published, in English, which highlights the rich bird life to be found on the island. It is called the “Birding Tourist’s Guide to Majorca”. Three lucky readers may well have emailed the paper to win a copy in response to the question “which red-breasted bird from northern Europe is starting to breed in Mallorca?” Hmm, let me think, bird, red breast. Is it a blackbird?

The robin is just one bird that is now laying down roots in Mallorca. So also is the little egret and the hoopoe. The Albufera nature park is home to them, as it is to many other birds, migrant or relatively full-time. Bird-watching is something of a growth tourism market and a not unlucrative one. As one of the book’s authors points out, bird-watchers spend a fair amount of dosh on twitching kit and they are “relatively big spenders”, like other tourists who splash out on specialist equipment and clothing, such as golfers or –  dare one say it – cyclists.

The book is all part of an initiative to grow this tourism market further. It’s a good idea. Now all that’s needed is a tourism minister and someone in charge of tourism promotion.

So Lonely

Where are you planning on going on holiday in 2010? This might sound a daft question. Surely, you will be saying to yourselves, that here is this blog, purporting to have something to do with Mallorca, and I’m being asked where I might be going. The answer has, of course, to be Mallorca. Well, no, you would be wrong. “The Bulletin” is equally something to do with Mallorca, but it ran this thing the other day about the ten best destinations in the world, and not one of them was Mallorca, or indeed Spain. This was all based on what the Lonely Planet has to say. 

Top of the list, apparently, is El Salvador, a country in central America whose only claim to fame is that it went to war with Honduras over a football match. There was a photo that supported El Salvador’s bid for top place. Sun, sea, a few rocks, some sand and a part of a palm that, as always, is artistically shown in the foreground. Could have been anywhere really, except Morecambe. Or maybe they’ve got palms in Morecambe now, and even some sun.

And coming in second is, wait for it, Germany, a country that has much to commend it, but as a holiday destination? Actually, there are many places in Germany that would qualify. Freeze to death on the Baltic Sea for example, on that island to where nudists fly from Erfurt – kit off. And given that all Germans should be coralled onto other planes and made to fly to Mallorca, going in the opposite direction would be a case of taking former Chancellor Kohls to Neuerburg – or something like that.

One can’t help but feel that there is something not quite right about a recommended list of holiday destinations in a Mallorcan paper that fails to include Magaluf as one of its top ten cities. Then there are the top “regions” in the world, as designated by the oh so Lonely Planet, one of them being southern Africa. What, all of it? Including Zimbabwe? You don’t need to go that far to get some good, honest corruption. Just spend a few days in the political corridors of Palma, while it’s far cheaper to travel, your money won’t devalue by the minute and you won’t be attacked somewhere that has no rule of law and that is run by a total lunatic; at least I don’t think you would be.

 

Enviro Man

They see him here, they see him there, they see Enviro Man everywhere. Yep, it’s him again. Hardly a day passes without the environment minister, Sr. Grimalt, being photographed at some event or other. At the weekend, he was at it again, this time in Albufera, where some rare ducks were being released. In the minister’s favour, one can at least says that he does actually see a lot of the environment, which probably does come with the job. But what with a walkway opening one day, a tree planting the next and a duck flapping the following day, how does the minister’s carbon footprint stack-heel up? Perhaps he takes the ministerial pushbike, though one doubts it. Could they not maybe have a pretend minister who attends these functions? A cardboard cutout and relay his messages of support from an organically controlled bunker somewhere in Palma. Or one of those local giant things that they have at fiestas, suitably adorned with an environment minister head. Or even an inflatable minister. In fact, why not have a cabinet of inflatables. Just pump them up wherever some event is going on. And then they may as well get rid of the real ducks as well, and bring on the rubber ones from Can Picafort.

Of course the minister might, in the future, have been able to have taken a more environmentally friendly train journey to Albufera. But not once his chum in the Unió Mallorquina, mayor Ferrer of Alcúdia, said not in my northern corridor, the mayor of course preferring the southern corridor, that which would have terminated by those rare ducks’ patch and maybe terminated them in the process. Bring on the rubber ducks.

Saltbreakers

Albufera once stretched as far as the port area of Alcúdia. The remaining undeveloped wetlands near the port are those close to the horse roundabout. Albufera was created from the sea; its water is partly salt, the Lago Esperanza is one of the few saltwater lakes in Spain. The sea has influenced the geography, the landscape and the ecology of Puerto Alcúdia and elsewhere on the bay of Alcúdia – Playa de Muro and Can Picafort, for example. Albufera is essentially a lagoon, divorced from the sea by the formation of dunes, forest and dried-out areas of salt deposits (“salinas”). 

 

This is no idle lesson in geography. Take some words from the above – “the sea has influenced”, “dried-out areas of salt deposits”. Why take them? Well because they are fundamental to what is threatening to become a major legal issue. The law on the coasts, that law under which, for instance, the chiringuito in Puerto Alcúdia is deemed illegal and therefore to be demolished, applies not just to beaches and what may or may not be built on them or within a certain distance of the shore line, but also to land – public land – that is deemed to be influenced by the sea. And this brings us to the “salinas”. 

 

Some 1,400 “private fincas” in Puerto Alcúdia, reports “The Diario”, are potentially sitting on what is such dried salt land. Fincas, in this context, refer to plots of land, on which real estate has been built. This may all sound rather arcane, but being understood by few (a definition of arcane) could well lead to a legal minefield. Those who had not understood are likely to understand rather more clearly and are already being made to understand.

 

We have to track back a bit. The law on the coasts was actually enacted in 1988 but for all practical purposes it was hardly applied until 2004. It is now being applied with far more vigour. The law is a national one and was designed – in the late ’80s -to attempt to rectify the building mistakes of the preceding three decades of development – mistakes in terms of the effects on the environment and in terms of legality. There is a distinction, under this law, between property developed before and after its enactment. It has already been established that certain properties, seemingly built legally before 1988, are in fact on so-called public domain. Owners have been granted rights for up to 60 years but they are unable to sell the properties. Under the law they would be demolished at the end of this period. After 1988? Well that’s a different matter, and it is what has led to the horror stories of developments on the costas being flattened. 

 

But to come back to those “salinas”. The debate now centres on whether these were naturally or artificially created; if the latter then there is not a problem, if natural then there is. How on earth are they ever going to sort this out? Because of the geography in the bay area, it is only natural to conclude that much if not all of what is now Puerto Alcúdia and Playa de Muro is indeed on land that was influenced by the sea and in some way in the public domain, naturally created dried-out salt land or not. 1,400 fincas constitute a whole load of properties. 

 

The good news is that the director responsible for decisions on demarcation under the law seems to respect the fact that some of these fincas are of “cultivation” and generate “riches”, by which one presumes he is referring to hotels. On the other hand, there are fincas felt to be “unproductive” and “abandoned”. What is unproductive? Someone’s house? He, the director, is in discussion with various owners and the likes of the hotel assocation in Muro. 

 

Unlikely though it is that this will lead to orders for mass demolition, the fact that the discussions are being held emphasises how seriously the law is being taken. But to what end? That there may have been breaches, indeed have been, no-one really doubts. Yet to pursue this with the vigour that is being suggested in this instance can lead only to colossal legal wrangling. The very fact that the 1988 law was basically held in abeyance for some 16 years only goes to prove that Spanish land laws over decades have been a complete mess and usually disregarded, and that land rights were, in all likelihood, the subject of anything but the law. To now be invoking something as obscure as what may or may not be public domain dried-out salty land just adds to the mess.