The seventh of July 1977 is a day that will never be forgotten

Two boats carrying fifty people made the short crossing from the Andratx coast to the island of Dragonera. | TOMEU VERGER

Andrew EdePalma 31/01/2025 11:12
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7-7-77. The seventh of July 1977 is a day that will never be forgotten. Two boats carrying fifty people made the short crossing from the Andratx coast to the island of Dragonera. Their mission was to occupy the island. They did so for two weeks, the occupation coming to an end because they had basically been starved into giving up their protest. But the occupation was not a failure. The enormous media attention it received was to prove significant in saving Dragonera, which in 1974 had been sold to a company called Pamesa for some one hundred million pesetas. The purchase was on the understanding that half of the island would remain in its natural condition; the other half would be developed and would include a marina. The island’s area is slightly under three square kilometres, and the plan was in fact to involve the construction of four developments with capacity for some 4,000 people. Essentially, the whole of the island was to be built on.

Following the purchase, the environmentalists GOB, formed in 1973, and other organisations sent a joint letter to Andratx Town Hall pointing to the irreversible alteration that the project would entail and to the importance of Dragonera in the context of Mediterranean flora and fauna. The Council of Europe was petitioned and requested to recommend that the Spanish Government make Dragonera a nature park. The Fomento del Turismo, the Mallorca Tourist Board, voiced its opposition to the development. Despite all this, the town hall approved the plan.

The occupation and what followed were to be a landmark. Environmental awareness was raised in a manner that it had never previously been in Mallorca. Two years after the death of Franco and with Spain undergoing the transition to democracy, it wasn’t only the mix of anarchists, leftists, artists and ecologists involved in the occupation who were outraged at the potential destruction of Dragonera. Public opinion across the generations and political spectrum was against the development. The environmental movement in Mallorca truly started in July 1977 as did a public rejection of actions that had so transformed the coast in the dash for mass tourism and its allied residential accommodation.
The official reaction to the occupation was to be uncommonly swift. The president of the Provincial Deputation (as then was), Gabriel Sampol, stamped his signature in opposing the development. The matter was to end up in the courts, and in 1984, following repeated demonstrations, the Balearic High Court dismissed an order that had permitted construction.

On 14 July 1988, the Council of Mallorca approved the purchase of Dragonera for 280 million pesetas. Pamesa got its money back and some more; the equivalent of over one million euros more than had been paid in 1974. Seven years later it was given nature park status. The protection of Dragonera was official. There could be no development.

The 30th anniversary of the nature park declaration was on Sunday last week. In 1995, Dragonera became the third nature park in Mallorca, or right by Mallorca to be strictly accurate. The first was Albufera, the declaration for which was on January 28, 1988. Mondragó came along in 1992, by when Cabrera was a national park.

The Council of Mallorca will be marking the anniversary with a series of activities to emphasise the island’s environmental values and its wildlife. There is to be a new observatory for birds, while the Miranda mirador is to be restored. This is in the most visited part of Dragonera, close to Cala Lledó and from where there are panoramic views across to Mallorca. The councillor for the environment, Pedro Bestard, says: “It is necessary to support its conservation and to maintain the ecosystems, so that we can continue to enjoy the island in the future.”

Not just necessary, it should be said. Declarations of the type that applies to Dragonera place an obligation on authorities for conservation and maintenance. This includes guaranteeing that there can never be development, which can mean seeing off court challenges. A definitive judgement denying development in Albufera was given a few years ago.

Dragonera is part of the Xenib network of natural spaces. Others in Mallorca are Albufera, Mondragó and Cabrera as well as the Llevant Nature Park (declared in 2001), the Es Trenc-Salobrar de Campos Nature Park (2017), the Tramuntana Natural Region (including the Galatzó finca), the Albufereta Reserve and two natural monuments - Fonts Ufanes in Campanet and Torrent de Pareis in Escorca. They all have protected status but none can compare with Dragonera in terms of the fight that was put up to ensure the protection.