News
The people’s paper ISSUE NO. 1839
MALLORCA • WWW.EUROWEEKLYNEWS.COM
1 - 7 October 2020
FREE • GRATIS
THE Tourism Ministry backs the idea of individual air corridors for the Balearic Islands as key to a strategy for rebooting the tourism sector sooner rather than later. The Secretary of State for Tourism Fernando Valdes said he is in favour of the Balearic and Mallorca governments’ proposal for each island to open up separate safe air routes with visitor market countries, in line with the Covid-19 situation on each. Valdes was in the Balearics last week for two days of talks with the islands’ administration on setting out conditions and protocols to allow for a safe reactivation of tourism on the archipelago and to plan for the 2021 season. He expressed the view that while problems affecting the tourism sector are common to different destinations,
THE weekend’s devastating wildfire has left a huge chunk of the s’Albufera natural park charred and blackened. The blaze broke out early on Friday evening and was fanned by intense gusts of wind of up to 100 kilometres per hour which started up in the early hours of Saturday morning. It forced the evacuation of more than 30 people from their homes and destroyed three properties, damaging the exteriors of a couple of others. By Saturday morning 100 firefighters backed up by nine planes and helicopters were battling to stop the fire from advancing, later joined by two
CREDIT: Model Econòmic, Turisme i Treball IB Twitter @Treball_Goib
AIR CORRIDORS
OBJECTIVE: The aim is to reactivate the tourism sector as soon as possible.
the best way to “consolidate recovery as soon as possible” is for solutions which are specific to the circumstances of each. Economic Model, Tourism and Employment minister Iago Negueruela insisted that the central government needs to be working on reactivating air corridors “now more than ever.” “The Spanish government has to negotiate with the European Union countries, which represent the main Balearic tourist markets, safe air corridors specific to each island,” Negueruela commented. The regional minister stressed the priority is to reduce the levels of transmission of the virus, but at the same time “to work with the sector in these such important months for the global positioning of our islands to return to being a world reference point.”
Devastating fire amphibious aircraft. By the time the firefighting teams had fully extinguished the flames late on Sunday afternoon, helped by overnight downpours, it had burned through some 440 hectares of reeds. Of this, between 80 and 90 per cent falls within the border of the natural park, representing about 25 per cent of its total surface area, explained park director Maties Rabassa. He said the wildfire was
the second worst to ever affect the protected zone. Balearic regional Environment minister Miquel Mir said that while the reed itself would probably recover relatively quickly from the scorching, the damage to some species of wildlife which usually inhabits the park could be more long-lasting. “Last year 80 hectares were burned and it has grown back. The impact on fauna is another thing,” he pointed out. Mir also made a point
of expressing his “infinite” gratitude to all those involved in the firefighting effort, commenting on social media about the “enormous human effort there is behind the operation.” There is speculation that
it was human action, either intentional or unintentional, which sparked off the blaze. According to Spanish press reports, the Balearic regional Environment ministry has confirmed that initial investigations
point to this possibility, and that the fire could have started from two different points. Officers from the Guardia Civil’s SEPRONA Nature Protection Service, together with Environment experts, are carrying out a full investigation to determine the cause. The investigation includes questioning people who were in the park at the time the fire is thought to have started up.