Playa de Muro, where activities are due to be curbed. | MDB

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It seems likely that Playa de Muro will not have three activities this summer - these are the ski bus (or banana boat), jet ski and ski paragliding. The Balearic Environment Commission has concluded that all three pose a risk of contamination. In order for them to be authorised, they need to satisfy a strict environmental assessment, a process that can take several months.

The commission says that Playa de Muro is an area of "environmental significance" that could be adversely affected by "an accumulation of anthropic activities at great speed". By anthropic, one takes the commission to mean something like unnatural. Consideration has to be given, the commission adds, to the possibility of spillages of fuel and other waste that can put species and habitats at risk.

While awaiting a definitive response from the commission, Muro's mayor, Martí Fornes, and the mayors of Alcudia and Santa Margalida - Toni Mir and Joan Monjo - recently requested the Costas Authority to give provisional authorisation for these sorts of activities in the bay of Alcudia. The mayors claimed that the commission was lengthening the processing of requests and was putting the summer season "in danger". The commission refutes this and says that most requests, other than those for the use of motor boats, have received favourable reports.