Their reports are fundamental to real estate transactions that guarantee access to housing for some and generate millions in profits for others, yet their salaries don't reach 15 euros per hour. "We've lost 60% of our purchasing power because the hourly rate hasn't been raised for years, despite the enormous responsibility we bear in certifying the value of real estate," explains Mallorcan appraiser Miquel Àngel Busquets. This professional, with decades of experience, like the rest of his colleagues in the field who have decided to go on strike, doesn't consider it logical "to have increasingly worse working conditions in a sector that currently generates very significant capital gains." "It's important to keep in mind that our reports are becoming increasingly complex and that we are responsible for their content, which is essential, for example, for banks to grant mortgage loans," he warns.

The Civil Guard in Sineu is investigating two men, aged 79 and 21, as alleged perpetrators of a crime against public health, related to the seizure of 3,000 marijuana plants in the municipality of Lloret de Vistalegre. The events date back to the morning of Wednesday, January 21. The Lloret Local Police were alerted to a fight between neighbors on the Pina countryside road, an area very close to the communal land. Officers went to the scene and tried to mediate the altercation, but seeing that the situation was becoming dangerous and uncontrollable, they notified the Civil Guard in Sineu.

Only about twenty of the 139 apartments in Menorca advertised on the Idealista portal are for residential rental. The lowest price is 960 euros per month. This amount is beyond the reach of most people, leading many separated individuals to move back in with their parents and younger people to delay leaving home. Access to housing has become virtually impossible for the resident population, with the government at all levels unable to provide a solution. With the People's Party (PP) having ruled out declaring the real estate market under pressure and intervening in prices, the most visible public efforts are focused on advancing Ibavi (Balearic Housing Institute) projects to guarantee decent housing for the poorest sectors of society. Currently, more than one hundred apartments are under construction, distributed across developments in five municipalities on the island. The Menorca Island Council has also allocated 1.5 million euros in the 2026 budget to acquire land to promote new social housing projects. The PSOE, from the opposition, had requested an allocation of 10 million euros. Amidst all this, island society is mobilizing with different initiatives to demand solutions and propose them independently of institutions and the political class. Every morning, a few activists from the Platform for Dignified Housing demonstrate at the doors of the Island Council headquarters in Mahón to demand that the State expand social safety net measures regarding housing to address the housing emergency. Otherwise, they say, rising prices, unaffordable rents, and the almost nonexistent supply make the situation untenable.

Palma is processing three Strategic Residential Projects (PRE) with more than 6,000 apartments that have taken advantage of the law that allows these initiatives to be expedited—the Law of Urgent Measures for Obtaining Land—as confirmed to ARA Baleares by the real estate developers' association Proinba. These projects benefit from a single procedure that combines all the steps that were previously handled sequentially—urban planning, land readjustment, and urbanization—reducing the timeframe from up to ten years to between 18 and 24 months. "Even so, these timeframes can no longer be shortened, and we cannot expect anything very soon. In any case, these buildings will be under construction much sooner than if we had processed them through the conventional channels," explains Proinba's president, Óscar Carreras. In addition to the three projects being processed as strategic, there are two others, also "very advanced," Carreras confirms. All of this paints a picture with approximately 11,000 new apartments, some 5,500 of which, as stipulated by the regulations, "will be protected or price-limited, a significant portion of which will be managed by Ibavi to serve those most urgently needing housing who meet the requirements," the president points out. To access the price-limited apartments, beneficiaries will have to prove a minimum of five years of residency in the Balearic Islands. Regarding the possibility of building apartments in transition zones (rural land), which the regulations also allow, the president of the developers' association believes that it is not possible in the short term, partly due to the uncertainty generated by the appeal before the Constitutional Court. "As an association, we opposed it. Urban and developable land must be exhausted first, and in this sense, municipalities can always choose this option," he said.

The Pla de Mallorca is full of fragmented wooded areas scattered across the territory in a mosaic pattern, but historically "we have focused our attention on the Serra and other emblematic areas and have forgotten this natural vegetation that we need to recover," says the biologist and author of the book. Forests in the interior of Mallorca, Nature and CultureBiel Vicens. With this work – which he will present this Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the Sineu Town Hall auditorium – he aims to break with the "comparative injustice" that exists in relation to these wooded areas, little known despite their high value. In this regard, he exemplifies that in areas like the Serra de Tramuntana mountain range, there are many protected lands that are even publicly owned. In contrast, he denounces that "publicly owned forests do not exist in the Pla, with the sole exception of the municipality of Lloret." Therefore, he asks the town councils and the Consell de Mallorca (Island Council of Mallorca) to acquire forests and pay attention to them, since they are true lungs of biodiversity. In addition to highlighting the wooded areas in the Pla, Vicens also wants to explain the current importance of the area's forest ecosystems. "Today we know that agroforestry mosaics, like those that have barely survived until now, are capable of providing more ecosystem services than other, more extensive and homogeneous landscapes. Science highlights the benefits of natural vegetation environments for agricultural systems: protection against soil loss, protection against the elements, natural pollination, improved water infiltration and storage, among others," he explains.