In 1990, at the height of the canyellisme era, the Manacor group Ocults released the song ‘I had a little house in Mallorca’, included in the album Pa amb oli nacional. “Enough is enough, enough is enough, enough is enough,” the chorus said, alluding to the rampant construction of hotels. ‘Ecological’ music reactivated in 2003, after the electoral defeat of the First Pact of Progress. The popular Jaume Matas took office at the Consolat de Mar with the support of Maria Antònia Munar’s Unió Mallorquina. He quickly forgot his former role as Minister of the Environment under José María Aznar. He was delighted to open the doors of the Balearic Islands to the businessmen he had met in the VIP box of the Santiago Bernabéu stadium. Among them was the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez, owner of the construction company ACS, which was awarded the contract for the construction of many highways and the Son Espases hospital.In the same year, 2003, the Autovia NO Platform, formed to reject the planned stretch between Inca and Manacor, released the album Ja n’hi ha prou. Autovia No! The project brought together songs from peninsular and, above all, Mallorcan groups. One of them, ‘Mallorca podrida’ (Rotten Mallorca), included one of the most memorable verses of a term marked by megalomania and corruption: “Cañellas, Fageda, Matas and Munar... We know where you live! We know where to go [...] One day you will have to pay!”That experience would inspire the irreverent band Rock & Press, led by journalists Carlos Garrido, Miquel Massutí, Gabi Rodas and Joan Frau, and musicians Carlos Grauches and Mané Capilla. In 2005, after enlivening an evening for the Union of Journalists of the Balearic Islands (SPIB), they debuted with Cemento. “It was – says music researcher Tomeu Canyelles – a satire made up of twelve unfiltered songs that aimed to denounce both the mismanagement of the right-wing and the fierce urban speculation that was devouring Mallorcan land.” Rock & Press continued their criticisms in subsequent works: Korrupción (2007) and Krisis (2010). The group even received a threat of legal action from Maria Umbert, Matas’s former chief of staff and the first director of IB3.Another group that firmly committed to the environmental struggle was Oprimits, who had already distinguished themselves in the cause since 1996. In 2006, they achieved great success with the song ‘Salvem Mallorca’ (Let's Save Mallorca), included in the album Tolerància zero. The title was in line with the demonstration that on February 14, 2004, marched through the streets of Palma with the slogan ‘Whoever loves Mallorca does not destroy it’. The initiative, which gathered about 50,000 people, had the support of various musicians such as Tomeu Penya, Maria del Mar Bonet, the band Antònia Font, and Biel Majoral. The 4,000 attendees of Mallorca's first green demonstration, ‘Salvem la Dragonera’ (Let's Save Dragonera), on February 3, 1979, were far surpassed.
The destruction of Mallorca sung by Tomeu Penya
In 1983 the one from Vilafranca debuted as an ecological singer-songwriter with the song 'Trenc'. Despite the criticism he received from right-wing sectors, he would compose more lyrics in favor of the protection of the territory, a path that other island artists would follow
PalmaT omeu Penya, 77, is speaking candidly to ARA Balears: “I want my current state of mind to be very clear. I am very sad. As a young man, I would never have imagined that Mallorca's future would be like it is now, an island full of cement and tourists, with saturated roads and residents who cannot access housing. For this summer's concerts, I am considering singing ‘Trenc’ again, which four decades ago I dedicated to the emblematic beach of Campos that now, unfortunately, is once again threatened”. ‘Trenc’ was the debut of the country singer from Vilafranca as an environmental activist at 35 years old. It is one of the most notable songs from his third album Coverbos (1984).
Having played for hotels with different groups, Penya had made a name for himself as a solo artist in 1979 with Tomeu Penya canta a la Vila. At that time, Mallorca was experiencing the explosion of the 'green warriors'. Since 1973, the GOB had not stopped raising the alarm about the rampant construction fever unleashed by the tourist boom of the late 50s. In July 1977, the first 'toponymic struggle' had already taken place with the peaceful occupation of the islet of Sa Dragonera (Andratx), threatened by a luxury development. In May 1978, it was time to mobilize for El Trenc, a sandy stretch four kilometers long. About 500 people gathered on its dunes to denounce the project to build a restaurant, complete with parking and camping facilities.
“We don't want fake paths”
The evolution of that citizen movement can be traced in the study 30 years of ‘Salvem es Trenc’, which in 2008 was published by the Campaner researcher Montserrat Alcaraz, together with Francesc Xavier Mas. “During the post-war period – Alcaraz says –, thanks to agriculture, Campos had been one of the richest towns in Mallorca and the local authorities wanted it to continue to be so with tourism. If it hadn't been for some activists who were then considered the villains of the story, today Trenc would be like the Arenal of Palma beach”. In May 1983, Gabriel Cañellas, from Alianza Popular, the embryo of the PP, presided over the first Balearic Government of the autonomous era. On September 30, the major demonstration in defense of Trenc already took place, gathering nearly 10,000 people in Palma. Spirits were very high with the latest proposal from a Swedish developer that planned to build a colossal urbanization for 6,000 people on the Campaner sandbank.
Tomeu Penya could not attend that historic demonstration because he was on tour through Catalonia. He had already positioned himself, however, in favor of the cause. “Through some friends –he assures– I learned about the atrocities that they wanted to project on Campos beach. It was clear to me that I also had to get involved in those protests, since my songs have always spoken of the land. To be able to inspire myself, I visited Es Trenc twice, which I had never set foot on before.” The first words that the muses whispered to him were: “We don’t want fake roads, / nor typewriters. / We don’t want cement or silk, / nor glass houses.” And the last ones would be: “We want the wind to play among the pine trees there. / We want birds to build their nests there.” The lyrics at no point mention the name of Es Trenc, which only appears in the title.
Political anthem?
Before Penya, a friend of his, Toni Morlà from Palma (1945-2014), had already sublimated the Majorcan landscape in the albums Amb sos peus en terra (1977), Primeres poesies de Miquel Costa i Llobera (1981) and Idò (1983). In Ibiza, in 1976 Isidor Marí sang ‘Flors de baladre’ for UC's second album En aquesta illa tan pobra. The resistance of the simple and characteristic shrub of the island's ravines symbolized the love for the land. That year, in Menorca, the group Traginada also debuted with a handful of 'environmentalist' songs, which kept alive the fight for the protection of Albufera del Grau (Maó).
The one from Vilafranca recalls the difficulties in the 70s and 80s in making songs in Catalan and defending the territory. “When I started my career in Catalan, I met people who laughed at me. In some performances, they even threw cubalibres and orange and lemon peels at me. Later, with ‘Trenc’, I had another surprise. I started singing it in the summer of 1983 before it appeared on the album Coverbos, in 1984. At the festivals of Mare de Déu d’Agost in Campos, when I announced it, a crowd of young people came onto the stage to sing it with me. I was worried the stage would collapse. The next day I was news in the papers. I learned that the mayor [Guillem Mas Vinyola, from Unió Campanera], present at the concert, had been very angry”.
Faced with that ‘slight’, the bell town council refused to pay for Penya’s performance. “My manager didn’t get paid until much later. That animosity would be repeated in other places in Migjorn. I remember one evening I was having dinner in a restaurant, a gentleman approached me and told me, in kind words, that he didn’t want his town to also benefit from tourism with hotels on the beaches like Llucmajorers and Santanyiners had already done. I told him that I was not against tourism, that the only thing I wanted was for our landscape not to be touched”. Little by little ‘Trenc’ became the soundtrack to the green movement. “As I sang it at the summer festivals, I saw that the audience already knew the lyrics. And this was before the album had even been released.Verbs. He was very happy. At no time, however, did I intend for the song to become a political anthem. My music does not belong to any political party.
In 1984, with the echo of the iconic song, the Balearic Parliament declared the Arenal an Area of Special Natural Interest (ANEI) with the votes of UM, the PSOE, and the PSM. This did not prevent the Campos City Council from granting a license in 1992 to build 68 apartments, a bar-restaurant, and a swimming pool on a supposed urban plot in Les Covetes, near the protected area. However, in November 2012, the Superior Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands accepted the appeals filed by GOB and PSM and ordered the demolition of that illegality. In 2017, the Government had already declared El Trenc-Salobrar de Campos Natural Park, with a total area of approximately 3,768 hectares.
'Mallorca is sinking'
In 1987, three years after singing ‘Trenc’, Penya would once again exhibit his ecological vein. It was with the song ‘Cabrera’, included in the album Tomeu. At that time, the GOB was fighting to end the Spanish army's maneuvers in the Palma archipelago, located about 15 kilometers from the Campaner beach. The Vilafranca native described it as “a naked virgin in the sea” and insisted “don't hurt it.” “It was a place – he assures – that I loved very much because I had done my military service there.” The following year, the Balearic Parliament began the process of declaring Cabrera a Maritime-Terrestrial National Park, which became a reality in 1991.
While Penya was limited to mourning the loss of paradise, Raphel Pherrer from Palma dared to openly criticize the tourism model of the Islands. He would do so with the albums Desnormalització (1986), Sor Tomasseta Superstar (1989), and Mallorcatur (1989), the latter in collaboration with Carlos Garrido and Toni Miranda. His songs combated, in a satirical key, political corruption, linguistic diglossia, the folklorization of traditions, and the waste of natural resources. In 1992, the Vilafranca native also decided to raise the tone of his lyrics. It was with ‘L’Estalella’, which appeared on the album Sirena. It alluded to a property located in the coastal area of L'Estanyol de Migjorn, in the municipality of Llucmajor, where GESA had planned to install a thermal power plant. “What a shame it would be – he sang – for the people of Llucmajor, / L’Estanyol full of coal, to burn it and generate energy. / No power plants or chimneys, enough of making a mess, / because the people of Llucmajor have very clear ideas [...]”.
The researcher Tomeu Canyelles has analyzed the impact of ‘L’Estalella’ in the book L’esperit elèctric (Illa Edicions, 2026). “It was – he says – an unexpected blow to the consciousness of the island society. Even other artists who until then had never taken a stand made their ecological aspirations public. This is the case of Llorenç Santamaria, who that same year would declare that ‘Mallorca must be green and beautiful’”. The resident of Vilafranca would continue to incorporate explicit ecological messages in other songs. In ‘Mirau-me, mirau-nos bé’, from the album Anuats (1995), he denounced that “if we don't pay more attention / we will end up walking / surrounded by cement / we won't even see the sea”. In 2018, on an island already swallowed by turbo-capitalism, Penya directly criticized mass tourism in ‘Mallorca s’enfonsa’, included in the album R.D.I. Comunitat des Pla“. If we don't impose order – he warned – we will all have a breakdown”. By 2026, order has not arrived and the island's reality is even more desolate. “It saddens me greatly what we have”, emphasizes one of the first voices that sang about environmentalism 43 years ago.