right ok, I'll explain as best as I can. as an active mountain guide I do know a thing or two on the subject so I'll elaborate a little.
(this should be an interesting read for anyone caring about nature and preserving the environment)
let's start with this: on the balearics, a lot of the land is privately owned, mostly by local families who have been owning their plots for decades, in some cases centuries even. the government owns a few bits too, but the vast majority of soil is actually in private hands. now, when tourism started and up to pretty recently, so for quite a long time, there never really was a problem - people that visited natural areas were respectful, never left any trash and also didn't spoil the area with excessive noise etc. and because this has been working well, a lot of the plots had never been fenced off (there was no need to), which also meant that, unless you enquired, you mostly weren't even aware that you are on privately owned land rather than on public soil.
what's changed over the course of the last two decades? in the case of ibiza, the ever-growing numbers of tourists mean that certain areas suffer from intense human pressure, and in some cases, downright massification.
in the specific case, the area in question, the plot close to es vedrà, before I explain any further, here are two facts:
- the plot is indeed privately owned (with the exception of the very coastline, which legally is always public in spain)
- the area is also a special bird protection zone and thus a no-fly area for drones
the first issue is, as previously explained, unless you cared to investigate a little, people probably thought that it was public land.
the second issue is, simply put, people are pigs. the amount of rubbish left, tags/graffiti on rocks (and even on the watchwower, which is also privately owned!) in the last few years is absolutely staggering. whenever I entered this area, we collected a lot of litter along the way.
the third issue is, ibiza is still a pirate island and lots of people try to make money any way they can. selling mojitos illegally (in plastic cups with straws which then get left behind), doing yoga classes without any kind of licence or authorization, people running hikes commercially without any kind of licence etc...
the fourth issue is, since it's such an attractive area, all those artists doing their sunset DJ sets there - again, without any kind of authorization etc.
last year, diplo's DJ gig there was the straw that broke the camel's back. no authorization (not even a request), bird protection area, full blown noise, lots of people etc...you genuinely can't fukc things up any more than that.
but to be completely honest, seeing the hordes and all things that had been done so badly, we saw this coming and I have full respect for the land owner's decision to fence off whatever areas of their plot.
for now, I can only publicly ask you all to respect the fenced off areas so that those zones can regenerate. I hope that as the summer starts we will have a clearer picture of what is allowed and what isn't and I shall update this thread here when I can. I haven't been in that specific zone lately so I haven't seen it yet myself.
it's a massive shame that it had to come to this, but sadly 'common sense' has just disappeared from this world it seems.
www.periodicodeibiza.es
www.noudiari.es
www.diariodeibiza.com
