ISSUE NO. 1679
7 - 13 September 2017
MALLORCA
YOUR PAPER, YOUR VOICE, YOUR OPINION
Wine panic Contagious disease threatens industry
THREAT: Mallorca’s famous wine industry in peril after findings. By Matthew Elliott ‘Olive Ebola’ is now threatening Mallorca’s wine industry. The dangerous plant pathogen Xylella Fastidiosa has infected at least 14 vineyards across the island. The contagious disease has already infected hundreds of olive and almond trees. It is dubbed ‘ebola’ because it is extremely contagious and kills almost all trees in its path. Positive identification of the disease on grapevines have been made in Sant Llorenc, Felantix, Sencelles, and Manacor. At present the outbreaks are restricted to small, private vineyards. If the disease is confirmed on large scale wine producing estates the results could be catastrophic for the island’s wine industry.
EU scientists recently left Mallorca after evaluating the damage done to olive trees. They concluded that it will be necessary to cull and burn thousands of trees in order to stave off the spread of the disease. When the bacteria first arrived in Europe in 2013, Italy lost one million olive trees. Agriculture minister Vicenc Vidal has held an emergency meeting with the affected wine growers and the island’s larger producers. They have agreed on a containment plan which may still be feasible if the bacteria is restricted to small holdings. Vidal himself has come in for heavy criticism after ecologists revealed that the bacteria may have been festering on Mallorca for up to 10 years. Earlier action may have prevented what is almost certain to be a disastrous few years for olive, almond and potentially wine producers.
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Arrests over stomach bug lies SEVERAL arrests have been made as police go after British stomach bug scammers. The suspects are believed to have targeted British tourists outside hotels and encouraged them to make fraudulent claims. Police made the arrests at addresses in Calvia and Palma. It is understood that the suspects told complicit Brits to buy diarrhoea medicine at a Mallorca pharmacy to support their false claims against the hotels. Guardia Civil officers and a court magistrate participated in the raids. Investigators believe an organised criminal network is behind the avalanche in sickness claims in the past 12 months. They have rocketed by 500 per cent since 2015 and are believed to have cost Mallorca hotels €50 million last year. They were acting on information from hotel groups, including Club Mac de Alcudia, which have hired private investigators to unravel the false sickness claims. Action has also been taken in the UK, where the government withdrew the operating licence of a company which advised clients to invent stom-
ach bug claims. Allsure Ltd, based in Lancashire, is believed to be the first company closed down by order of the British government in relation to the scandal. British investigators found that Allsure managers dictated to clients exactly what they should write on their claim forms in order to be successful. Those who passed the lax British consumer complaints laws often won thousands of pounds in compensation, or a free holiday. British foreign secretary Boris Johnson has pledged to clamp down on the claims industry.