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'Portugese man o' war' turns up on Formentera seaboard

Foto caravella 1Formentera's Office of Environment reports that in recent days roughly one hundred jellyfish-like organisms, dubbed the Portugese man o' war, have turned up at local beaches and swimming spots.

Cleaning crews, which picked up 89 of the marine hydrozoans from Migjorn beach, removed another nine from the area of coast between cala Embaster and es Caló de Sant Agustí and several more from Illetes.

What to do if you find a Portugese man o' war
Beachgoers who come across a man o' war on the beach should telephone 112. The emergency service has been directed to document information on sightings and pass it along to the Council so the organisms can be removed.

Under no circumstances should one attempt to touch a man o' war. Likewise, pet owners are advised to keep their animals from sniffing or stepping on any that wash up on the shore.

The CiF environment office reminds islanders that surges in cases of Portugese man o' war or other organisms on the local seaboard are linked to marine and wind currents. As with similar species, anyone comes across a Portugese man o' war should remain calm and proceed with caution.

Crews redraw metred parking spaces across Formentera

Foto nou pintatThe Formentera Council's Office of Mobility reports that for three weeks beginning tomorrow, Tuesday, April 17, additional metred parking spaces will be added in Sant Francesc, Sant Ferran and es Pujols.

Besides marking out vehicle parking spaces, crews will also repaint traffic lines on the adjacent road surface. Work will be specially coordinated to minimise inconveniences. Local law enforcement will issue updates concerning the time and locations of activity.

In first participatory session, Formentera reaches out to islanders on sustainable mobility plan

foto pla mobilitat 2Yesterday the Formentera Council's Office of Mobility held its first participatory drafting session as the administration prepares to put together the island's "Sustainable Mobility Plan" (Pla de Mobilitat Sostenible). The gathering was attended by Councillor Rafael González, of Formentera's infrastructure and mobility departments; Councillor Sònia Cardona, head of citizen participation; and representatives of IDOM, the firm tasked with preparing the document. The officials officials gathered before the neighbourhood, land and environment sections of the Consell d'Entitats to share details of their research.

Aim of Sustainable Mobility Plan
According to Councillor González, the plan is about “identifying measures and actions that will help reshape mobility on the island, making it more sustainable and in tune with the environment”.

The strategy, said González, entails four working phases: piloting a review of local mobility, past and present; articulating strategic courses of action; preparing an action plan for a fixed set of objectives; and, lastly, planning and budgeting for manoeuvres in the coming years. Last night, meeting attendees got a look at the first two phases of the plan.

Mobility survey: now and moving forward
Holding up the results of surveys and headcounts administered last year, officials reported that on any given day in summer, 118,9111 people went mobile in some capacity. In 36,609 cases, those people were residents. Another 72,726 were travellers with plans to stay the night on the island. In the remaining 8,576 cases, respondents arrived and departed anew the same day.

Of the 37,609 displacements by locals (equivalent, on average, to 3.2 trips per person per day), 82% happened with a privately-owned vehicle. The remaining 18% of the time, residents opted for sustainable options such as walking, cycling or public transport.

Overnight visitors accounted for 72,726 displacements, or an average of 3.6 trips per person per day. In 66% of those cases, people used hired vehicles like cars or scooters to get where they were going; 11% of the time they drove their own vehicle. Sustainable transport was used in 17% of the trips taking place on the island. Other, non-sustainable transport was used 6% of the time.

And what about the 8,576 jaunts taken by daytrippers? For starters, each of these excursionistes took an average of 2.3 trips during his or her stay. They opted for sustainable mobility 40% of the time, followed by rental vehicles (38%); individually-owned vehicles (10%); cabs (9%) and other kinds of transport.

Survey administrators found that mobile islanders tended to stay in Sant Francesc, travelled between Sant Francesc and Sant Ferran or travelled between Sant Francesc and es Pujols. Overnight visitors tended to cover more ground, taking trips across the island, while single-day visitors usually stayed inside ses Salines nature preserve.

Strategic courses of action
Looking at the data, Councillor González highlighted “the soaring number of trips made by residents, overnight visitors, and daytrippers alike with privately-owned vehicles”. The task at present, he concluded, is to work towards a more sustainable understanding of mobility that accommodates more travel by foot, bicycle and publicly-subsidised transport “in order to strike a balance with transport that is sustainable and respectful of the environment”.

Nearly a dozen guidelines, most of which focussed on encouraging people to walk instead of drive; creating suitable infrastructure for cyclists; reshaping public transport to reflect the needs and demands of islanders and tourists today; improving options and accessibility for people living far from established urban areas; promoting more sensible use of privately-owned vehicles; improving road safety; and reorganising and managing parking areas.

From today, islanders can offer comments on the strategy for consideration ahead of the drafting of an action plan to be unveiled at the next meeting of the Consell d'Entitats.

Balearic high court confirms: es Campament is heritage site

foto es campament 2The high court of the Balearic Islands has confirmed the designation of es Campament as a site of exceptional cultural value. In so doing, the court rejected a suit brought by the owners of es Campament appealing the Formentera Council's decision to characterise it as such.

On November 29, 2013, the plenary assembly of the Formentera Council voted to begin the process of ascribing the status of “Asset of Cultural Interest” or BIC (Bé d'Interès Cultural) to la Savina's erstwhile prison. The designation also included special mention of the site's historical value.

The measure cited a text adopted in plenary by the Eivissa-Formentera island council in 2002. Dated September 30, that text held that “the former prison of la Savina (es Campament) was declared historical BIC”.

Responding the 2013 declaration, es Campament's owners undertook the contentious litigation rejected earlier today by the court when it upheld the publication of the BIC designation in the official gazette of the Balearic Islands and its inclusion in Formentera's catalogue of historical interest sites.

Culture and patrimony secretary Susana Labrador welcomed the court's ruling, noting it would “help ensure this treasured historical heritage monument receives the recognition proposed by the Council”. “Today's climate is favourable to efforts to recuperate historical memory”, she asserted, and called es Campament “particularly important in that sense”.

Formentera Council's commitment to historical memory
The ruling reaffirms the Council's commitment to recovering historical memory on Formentera. On March 1, celebrated as Dia de les Illes Balears, administration officials unveiled a plaque commemorating the five Formentera residents that were killed by supporters of Francisco Franco in 1937. The plaque is the first of its kind in our community.

Formentera welcomes Nuria Varela's 'feminism for beginners'

Nuria varela feminismo para principiantesThis Monday, the Formentera Council's Office of Social Welfare will host a presentation of Nuria Valera's book, Feminismo para principiantes. At the event, Valera will lead a discussion of contemporary feminism and the contradictions pervading our society's relationship with it.

An expert in feminism, Varela got her bachelor's in information technology, works as a writer and holds two master's degrees—one in interdisciplinary gender studies and another in gender and gender-equality policy. On her current trip to the island, Valera presents a freshly-minted comic-book version of Feminismo para principiantes (“Feminism for beginners”, TN), first published as an essay in 2008. In its current iteration, the book uses updated language and a heady dose of illustrations to take feminism to a broader audience.

To hear CiF social welfare secretary Vanessa Parellada tell it, the Formentera Council rejects the idea that “feminism is for women”. She contends that finding ways to apply feminist thought in society at large is “essential to making the world a better place”. Parellada also urges “progressives in power enable broad access to these ideas” and equates feminists' contributions with “public service”. As such, Parellada encouraged all islanders to come out for the event.

The discussion and book presentation are scheduled for next Monday, April 16 at 8.00pm in Biblioteca Marià Villangómez in Sant Francesc.

Included in the Diada de Sant Jordi activities programme, the event is supported by Institut Balear de la Dona and will be attended by that agency's director, Rosa Cursach.

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