In the Balearic Islands as a whole, the destruction of the territory could have been worse if it hadn't been for the international oil crisis of 1973, which aborted many planned developments. In Artà, one of them was Isla Ravenna. German-owned, it was the largest tourist project in Spain at the time. It was to be a luxury port city on a surface area of 3,250,000 m2. It was planned to accommodate 30,000 inhabitants and generate 5,000 jobs. In Menorca, however, the oil crisis would not affect the Shangri-La macro-complex in Albufera del Grau. Even so, its promoters could hardly have imagined that they would face such strong citizen opposition.“At the end of Francoism – assures historian Laura Piris – Menorcans suddenly became aware of the landscape destruction caused by the tourist boom. Here, the anti-Franco struggle focused more on landscape protection than on language protection.” While social pressure against Shangri-La was maintained, on November 11, 1978, the island's first environmental demonstration took place in Ciutadella with nearly 1,500 attendees. It was to preserve Macarella, on the island's south coast – in Palma, on September 30 of that year, there had been the historic 'Salvem es Trenc' mobilization, with about 10,000 people; and on February 3, 1979, it was the turn of 'Salvem sa Dragonera'.“Since its creation in 1977 – states Piris – the Menorcan delegation of the GOB did not stop thinking of strategies to save virgin beaches from the construction fever, which curiously today tourist developers sell as an attraction. There were places that, despite the opposition, ended up being colonized by hotels. This was the case of Cala Galdana, Cala en Porter, Son Bou, Arenal d’en Castell, and Punta Prima. Likewise, the Son Xoriguer meadow would become a marina.”It was in the midst of that conservationist struggle that in 1993 UNESCO declared Menorca a Biosphere Reserve and, two years later, Albufera del Grau received full protection as a Natural Park. Now the researcher asks herself the following question: “Whose island will it be in the future?”. The radiograph is traumatic. “Rich foreigners, especially French, keep arriving, buying properties for exorbitant prices, unaffordable for locals. If institutions don't take measures, in a few years Menorca will be left without Menorcans. There will only be those who have been able to inherit a house.” There is, however, another problem. “If a group of siblings inherit a property [possessió] or a small house near the sea, they end up selling it to large investors because it's the most practical thing to do. None of the siblings usually have enough money to buy the others' shares.”
The pioneering ecological struggle of Menorca
In 1973, four years before the historic occupation of Dragonera, the neighboring island mobilized to prevent the Albufera del Grau from hosting a macro-urbanization with an exotic name, Sahngri-La. After two decades of intense citizen pressure, in 1995 the landscape jewel north of Maó was declared a Natural Park.
PalmaCitizen struggle has more strength than some believe. The Menorcans know this well, who in 1973, at the end of Francoism, were the first in the Balearic Islands to raise their voices against the destruction of the territory – four years later, in July 1977, in Mallorca, there would be the historic occupation of Dragonera; and in October, in Ibiza, 2,000 people demonstrated with the cry 'Save Ses Salines'. In 1969 Menorca was the last island to embrace mass tourism with the inauguration of Maó airport, which replaced the old aerodrome in Sant Lluís. The historian from Maó, Laura Piris Coll, explains the reasons for this late incorporation into the tourist boom: “Here there was an important structure of its own for footwear and jewelry. The livestock sector was also quite profitable. In addition, the owners were very interested in maintaining family estates for reasons of social prestige. On the other hand, the dictatorship had not invested anything in infrastructure on the island”.
In 1972 Menorca had almost 50,000 inhabitants –now it has almost double that–, who saw 110,000 tourists arrive, which represented 3.1% of the total for the Archipelago –by 2025 the island surpassed the figure of 1.7 million. With the new winds of prosperity, developers were encouraged to buy plots of land near the coast to turn them into developments. They acquired them at a very low price, since, as they were not cultivable, they were undervalued by the Menorcans themselves. One of the most coveted areas by big capital would be the south of the Albufera del Grau, a natural site of about 5,000 hectares, located 30 kilometers north of Maó. The land was bought by the Dutchman Sigfrid Federmann with the participation of different real estate companies, some from Catalonia.
Avoiding being Mallorca
That project was christened with a completely exotic name: Shangri-La. It referred to the oriental paradise from the novel by the British James Hilton Lost Horizons, published in 1933 and which in 1937 director Frank Capra brought to the cinema. “Federmann –Piris assures– insisted that he did not want Menorca to resemble Mallorca, where the destruction of the coast had originated the derogatory term of 'balearization'. He had the idea of building a residential complex for select tourism in harmony with local architectural styles and respectful of the landscape. Being a macro-urbanization it was quite contradictory. The work would bear the signature of the Menorcan architect Pedro Luis Mercadal”. The partial plan, initially approved by the Maó City Council in 1972, foresaw roads and buildable plots around the entire lagoon, with chalets, hotels and various commercial areas, a marina and a yacht club. The main attraction was a first-class golf course, suitable for holding international tournaments.
The bloody oil crisis of 1973 was no impediment for Shangri-La to move forward. “There were –says the researcher– advertising promotions in the national and foreign press. Chartered flights were even organized from London so that interested people could see the plots, which were sold with payment facilities from various banks, including international ones. At the same time, advertisements appeared in the island newspapers requesting workers for the construction sites”.
Who first cried out against that environmental attack was the Menorcan delegation of Obra Cultura Balear (OCB). In 1972, the entity, which had been founded ten years earlier in Palma on the initiative of the Ciutadella philologist Francesc de Borja Moll, had already participated in Mallorca in a campaign against the urbanization of Cabrera, together with the Society of Natural History of the Balearic Islands. At the end of that year, the conservationist struggle in Menorca was already activated. It was from a letter published in the newspaper Menorca, in which the need was requested to form a 'Menorcan' group that would watch over the conservation of nature and the natural spaces of the island. The letter was signed by the Menorca Group of the Museum of Zoology of Barcelona, among whom were the Catalan Josep Congost and the Majorcan Josep Muntaner, then Biology students.
“From the beginning –states Piris–, Muntaner and Congost became involved in the defense of the Albufera, they provided a lot of data related to its environmental importance and at the same time they diagnosed the consequences that tourist exploitation could have for the avifauna. The Section of Natural Sciences of the Ateneu de Maó also had its say. In order to raise public awareness, conferences, round tables, exhibitions were promoted...”. In 1977, a delegation of the Balearic Ornithological Group (GOB), founded in Palma in 1973, already opened in Menorca. The environmentalist group would become involved in the protection of other threatened areas such as Macarella, Cala en Turqueta and Trebalúger.
Architects against lack of control
The media were the main vehicle for disseminating the protectionist campaign for the Albufera del Grau. On the island, the newspaper Menorca was the one that gave it the most attention with articles by specialists and letters to the editor, many of which were signed with a pseudonym. Members of the OCB also took care to send information to Diario de Mallorca and to newspapers on the Peninsula such as El Correo Catalán, Tele/eXprés, Destino, Diario de Barcelona and even to the British Daily Telegraph. In 1974 Eliseo Bayo published in Sábado Gráfico a poignant report titled Menorca, between silence and destruction.
That press campaign greatly displeased Foment de Turisme de Menorca, which, in a statement, would describe it as detrimental to the island's image abroad. Meanwhile, the movement against Shangri-La continued to gain support from the scientific and university world of Catalonia and the rest of Spain. Among the notable names was Maria Àngels Cardona Florit from Ferreries, a professor of Plant Biology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. With the backing of the academic community, the conservationist organizations followed up, through administrative channels, on the file for the urbanization of the Albufera in accordance with the urban planning of the municipality of Maó. They submitted allegations, appeals, and petitions to the relevant authorities.
Even the Official College of Architects of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands got involved in that environmental struggle. “In January 1974 – the historian emphasizes – it sent a letter to the Maó council and the civil governor of the Balearic Islands. It requested the suspension of the works and warned them of the non-existence of an approved urban planning proposal that foresaw the possibilities of urban development in the area”. From that moment on, the case began to gain attention and was transferred to the Ministry of Housing and other organizations such as the Institute for the Conservation of Nature (Icona), which sent delegates to see the state of the matter firsthand. As a result of those visits, in February 1974, the Shangri-La works were officially halted. Around those years, in Valldemossa (Mallorca), another urbanization with the same evocative name of an oriental paradise did become a reality.
in situ the state of the matter. As a result of those visits, in February 1974, the Shangri-La works were officially halted. Around those years, in Valldemossa (Mallorca), another urbanization with the same evocative name of an oriental paradise did become a reality.
Successful ending
Seven years later, in November 1981, the National High Court was already ruling in favor of protecting L'Albufera del Grau. In 1984, the Supreme Court ratified the decision. However, victory could not yet be declared. In 1985, the Maó General Urban Planning Plan once again classified the land as developable. On December 22 of that year, the GOB pressured with a demonstration with the slogan 'Salvem s'Albufera des Grau'. Finally, in 1986, faced with the barrage of allegations submitted, the City Council opted to definitively protect the wetland. It would then invest 500 million pesetas to expropriate the plots and demolish almost all the houses already built – today a few still remain, awaiting the amortization process to be completed. "There were investors," Piris points out, "who lost a lot of money".
In 1986, the Balearic Parliament approved the declaration of Albufera del Grau as a Natural Area of Special Interest (ANEI). In 1988, its Special Protection Plan was approved, and in May 1995, after two decades of mobilizations, it would become a Natural Park. Two years earlier, UNESCO had already granted Menorca the distinction of Biosphere Reserve. “The final success of this case –concludes the historian– demonstrated the potential of citizen struggles in defense of the landscape, which were a real challenge at the end of Francoism, when freedom of expression was still limited. Furthermore, from then on, the territory was seen as a mark of Menorca's identity.”