Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera are coordinating inter-island protests under the slogan ‘Let’s change course, let’s set limits to tourism’, to jointly confront the social, labour and ecological aspects of “devouring” tourism development. In stated issued by the Balearic environmental body GOB, they pointed out that, faced with this scenario, different initiatives have been emerging on the four islands.
One is the Via Menorca campaign, which on 8 June filled Maó’s Plaça Biosfera; another is the network of social movements on Ibiza and Formentera and other entities under the name Plataforma Cambiem el Rum, and the platform Menys Turisme, Més Vida (from Mallorca). Since the end of May, representatives of the different initiatives on the four islands have been meeting every week to coordinate demands, denouncing actions and potests as part of the jointly promoted inter-island campaign.
The aim is to coordinate “an intense season of protests” that will spread across the four islands to warn of the “harmful” impacts of the current tourism and economic model on all the islands and to demand “the necessary changes for a change of direction of the model that guarantees the fundamental rights that are at stake”.
They listed these as housing, social services, education, conservation and regeneration of natural resources, the sea and beaches, and natural spaces that have become “speculative assets”.
“The political class has to take forceful measures to establish limits and regulate this activity, and in turn, put the profits it generates at the service of the social majorities,” they added.
And finally, they have assured that they will work and articulate together to demand another socio-economic model “that addresses the current ecological and social crisis, respects the uniqueness and limits of the islands, and allows us to move together towards social and environmental justice, betting on the common good and dignified life”.