A few meters from the Dominican convent of Lloret, a bar displays an advertisement for a Halloween party and a costume contest. The establishment's decoration of skeletons and pumpkins contrasts with the debate taking place inside one of the halls of the convent premises, where the second day of What Plan do we want for tomorrow?, organized by the Pla de Mallorca XXI Association. A debate on the future of the region in the face of the transformation it is undergoing, like the whole island, accelerated by an economic and productive model that seeps into every corner of the geography.

The Ministry of the Sea and the Water Cycle has decided to sanction the company Novastar Ibiza SL for extracting groundwater without administrative authorization and using it to irrigate a private golf course in Llucmajor. As confirmed by ARA Balears, the file from the Directorate General for Water Resources, which qualifies the facts as a serious infringement, also establishes the obligation to repair the damage caused to the public water domain. The facility is located on a rustic estate in the municipality and coincides with the characteristics of one of the two private golf courses that Terraferida denounced in May for high water consumption.

The Councilor for Urban Planning and Heritage of the Andratx City Council, Beatriz Casanova Fuentes, submitted her resignation this Monday for personal reasons. From now on, the mayor, Estefanía Gonzalvo, will directly assume the responsibilities of Urban Planning and Heritage while the City Council prepares an internal restructuring of the municipal areas.

Llorenç Galmés admits that Mallorca "has reached the limit and cannot grow anymore", but he will not modify the main territorial and tourist planning instruments that the Council has to curb this growth. This is the contradiction that GOB and Terraferida have pointed out after meeting this Thursday with the island president at the Royal Palace. The entities left with a clear conclusion: "The feeling is the same as we had with Marga Prohens".

Some data from recent studies should not go unnoticed. Mallorca has lost 189 km² of agricultural land (1990-2018); 46% corresponds to new urban land (Chair of Insularity, UIB). Today, there are 55,256 buildings counted on the island on rustic land (Houses that do not exist, Miquel Rosselló). And, according to Terraferida, the rustic land has been denatured at a rate of 180 hectares per year (2021-2024). These are not anecdotal figures: they portray a rural world immersed in a context loaded with unsustainable trends that provoke a deep territorial transformation.

The British developer Taylor Wimpey has announced that it will build a new luxury residential development in Font de la Cala, in the municipality of Capdepera (Mallorca). It involves 18 new homes in a natural area already heavily punished by construction and where the territory is very mistreated. The apartments, with two or three bedrooms, will cost more than 800,000 euros for the cheapest one and will be ready in 2028.

The GOB has formally requested from the Andratx City Council the urban planning license and the complete file that authorize the large excavation works being carried out on a hillside in Port d'Andratx. The environmental organization wants to clarify to what extent the deep clearing of the mountain, visible from various points in the area, was foreseen in the authorized project and whether the works being done there comply with the conditions of the license.

The real estate developers of the Balearic Islands are not satisfied with the regulatory reforms of Marga Prohens' Government and, despite the possibility of increasing the number of apartments on the same plot by 45%, they have sent new proposals to Parliament. The Proinba Association aspires to amend the Balearic Islands' Urban Planning Law to facilitate the processing of real estate projects even if the water supply has not been approved. The document arrives after the developers have encountered difficulties in moving forward with the projects that aim to address the housing emergency.The regulatory reform that they have sent to Parliament would allow apartments to be approved first and then resolve whether they have the water necessary for future inhabitants legally guaranteed. This is the type of approach that courts have struck down in other territories, reminding that the order is the other way around: first it is necessary to prove that there is water, and then begin with licenses and permits.

Between 2023 and August 2026, the Directorate General of Water Resources has authorized 2,865 wells with associated water consumption, according to data provided by the Government. These are not simple "applications submitted or cases being processed, but rather extractions that have obtained administrative authorization" to extract water, according to Executive sources. The count does not include wells intended for geothermal energy. In this way, the aquifers of the Balearic Islands continue to incorporate new extraction points at a time when pressure on underground reserves is one of the main concerns in water management on the Islands.

There are 73,180 swimming pools in Mallorca, and 10,680 have been built between 2015 and 2024. That is, in the last ten years, three swimming pools have been built every day, according to the latest study by Terraferida. Panoramic views of Mallorca show more and more urban developments in coastal areas and also chalets on rustic land that have this infrastructure, surrounded by lawn. According to experts, this type of landscaping is even worse because it consumes more water. All this, while this summer there were 47 municipalities on pre-alert for drought.

We complain, and rightly so, about how the so-called European investors – who are speculators or aspire to be so – arrive in the Islands to acquire plots of land or finished villas and transform them into real estate assets. They buy for one million and want to get three out of it. Or they rent to acquaintances and engage in tourist activity without any authorization. Of course, the transaction takes place in their home countries, and the Islands only provide the territory, their body, in short, so that others can get rich.

The technical services of the Directorate General of Coasts and the Coastline concluded in November 2025 that there were sufficient grounds to initiate the expiry procedure for the concession of seasonal services on the beaches of Formentera. The report, to which ARA Balears has had access, expressly proposes that the competent body issue the agreement to initiate the procedure, considering that "several essential conditions" of the concession title have been breached. In other words, the criterion set by the head of the Coasts and Coastline service was to end a concession of bars and restaurants that had breached the law. Given this forcefulness, the already ousted Director General of Coasts, Maria Joaquina Ferrer – who is also a civil servant – considered that there was no other path than to follow the technical and legal criterion.

The keyboard chords of a version of Whitney Houston coming from the Hotel Mariant Park are mixed with the notes, at full volume, of Barbie Girl, a hit from the 90s coming from the surroundings of the Hotel Playamar. The August night is heavy and the hotel terraces are full of tourists looking for the promised entertainment. Right in the middle, immutable and eternal, oblivious to anachronism, remain the millenary stones of the Talayotic settlement of l’Illot.

The violent outburst at the end of the last and successful demonstration called with the aim of achieving less tourism, more life, is another indicator of a whole series of contradictory policies implemented simultaneously in our Autonomous Community. When the CAIB was constituted (1983), it assumed, among other things, competences in urbanism and territorial planning, but the State reserved the cards that could condition, directly or indirectly, urban and territorial plans: economic policy, taxation, justice, police, and large inter-community infrastructures, including the energy distribution network and ports and airports of general interest. Since then, the objectives of the policies implemented by both administrations have not always been consistent.

The Less Tourism, More Life movement carried out a protest action this Tuesday at Cova de la Grava, in Illetes (Calvià), to denounce what it considers the "privatization" of this small cove by the Gran Meliá Hotel de Mar. The activists have symbolically occupied the space, both by land and by sea, with banners and kayaks to assert that "the beaches will always be ours" and to demand the recovery of public coastal areas.

In the year 2000, 10 million tourists arrived in the Balearic Islands. In the year 2026, 20 million will arrive. For years, some political leaders tried to make us believe that tourist saturation was just a perception. Today, however, hardly anyone doubts that the Balearic Islands are suffering from a serious problem of overmassification.

The environmental organization Terraferida considers that the debate on water in the Balearic Islands cannot be limited to the construction of new desalination plants, as the Government proposes. Its spokesperson, Jaume Adrover, maintains that the problem is older: the territorial model has allowed for decades for dispersed urban growth and housing on rural land to increase pressure on aquifers, which are a public good. "I don't know of any place on the planet where such an abusive consumption of water is made as here due to chalets on rural land," states Adrover, who links this situation with the expansion of single-family housing outside urban centers.

New song against tourist overcrowding, land exploitation, the Balearic economic model, and real estate speculation. Pepet i Marieta have released Ses platges seran sempre nostres, a Mediterranean roots jota that reflects on some of the consequences of tourist overcrowding in Mallorca and the gentrification affecting neighborhoods and municipalities in the Balearic Islands. The song arrives at a time when the debate on the tourism model occupies a central space in Balearic current affairs, coinciding with the call for the 'Mallorca al límit!' demonstration, scheduled for this Sunday in Palma to denounce the effects of tourist saturation on the island.

Although state statistics speak of a global decrease in sales by foreigners in recent months, in the Balearic Islands the reality is quite different: according to the latest data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda, in 2025 these citizens acquired four out of every ten properties over €500,000 sold. A proportion that doubles any figure from other autonomous communities.