16/04/2013 00:00
TW
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STAFF REPORTER

PALMA
THE Balearic government needs to tap into a wealth of wildlife lovers worldwide if it wants to create all-year-round tourism, an ecological watchdog in the Balearics (GOB) said yesterday.

Citing the example of Majorca's Albufera Nature Reserve, GOB said that 50'000 foreigners - mostly from the United Kingdom and Germany - visit the natural wetlands in Alcudia every year. The park gives them the opportunity to monitor such protected wildfowl species as the fish eagle and the marine falcon, confirmed the ecologists.

Ornothological and more widely wildlife tourism could hold tremendous advantages for the tourist industry in the Balearics, GOB claimed, and even become a driving force for the regional economy, because such visitors need to observe the wildlife in spring and autumn seasons, away from the high “sun, sea and sand” tourist peaks of June, July and August. These visitors, GOB furthered, are not “looking for bargains” and would have medium to high spending power.

GOB pointed out that wildlife tourism is experiencing unprecedented growth in Spain. “Hundreds of thousands of people are coming to the country every year to see species which they cannot find in their country of origin,” a spokesman explained.

Both Catalonia and Extremadura, he said, have already set up tourist information offices specifically related to ornothological information in their regions.

The Balearics, explained the ecologists, is a “very important” site for wildfowl on their migration routes between Europe and Africa and it is for this reason, that sightings are so plentiful during Spring and Autumn.

GOB said it was “shameful” that the Balearic government had sent no representation at all to the International Birdwatching Tourism Festival which was held last February in Monfragüe in Caceres and that the Balearics did not even have its own public information website which people could consult on the matters of protected natural spaces in the Islands. Because of this, said the spokesman, potential tourists to the Balearics who are interested in such matters have to look at private websites to get the information they want.

No more golf courses and marinas
Research by international tourism consultants TGI, claimed the ecologists, showed that 2.85 million people from the United Kingdom alone got to other parts of the world every year to birdwatch.

GOB was sharply critical of the Balearic government for not committing to a “greener” and more “sustainable” form of tourism. “The government continues to back plans for more golf courses and marinas,” said the ecologists “but this strategy is just producing more of facilities that already exist rather than diversifying the tourist offer.” GOB meanwhile have been protagonists in a high media profile dispute over a new golf course planned at Son Bosc in Muro, right alongside the Albufera nature reserve.

The ecologists drew the support of international wildlife specialists in their legal attempt to stop the bulldozers moving in and destroying species of rare orchids. According to scientific reports, were the golf course project to go ahead, it might also destroy a fungus (on which the orchids feed) which is found nowhere else in the world.

The regional Environment ministry responded by protecting the plots of land at Son Bosc where the orchids are growing but as a consequence has had to reduce the number of “holes” of the golf course. The excavators have since moved in to start building but prior to the start of the project, an international golfing holiday tour operator was reported to have said that there was “no current demand” for extra golf courses in the Balearics.