I still can't come to terms with the news: Xisco Avellà He was leaving us forever. It was Pep Lluís Pol who told me on Tuesday morning, "Yesterday Xisco set sail on his final voyage." It was hard to believe, especially since just a few days before he himself had told me he was feeling better. Suddenly, stories, anecdotes, campaigns, situations, events… all starring him began flooding my mind.

Xisco Avellà (Palma, 1957), founder and historic president of the GOVERNMENT He passed away this Monday in Palma. When discussing the environmental movement in Mallorca, the social influence of the GOB (Balearic Ornithological Group), and the consolidation of a strictly island-specific environmental awareness, his name inevitably comes up. A biologist, teacher, and tenacious activist, Avellà was one of the leading figures in the strategic shift that the GOB underwent in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a period many consider pivotal in the modernization of conservationism in the Balearic Islands.