More than 10,000 form human chain at Mallorca's Es Trenc beach to protest park protection law
Up to 10,000 people formed a 3-kilometre human chain along Es Trenc beach on Sunday, demanding the Balearic government reverse a law that allows it to modify park protections by decree without parliamentary approval.
Massive turnout on the beach
More than 10,000 people, according to organisers, linked hands along the coastline from the Club Nàutic de sa Ràpita to Ses Covetes on Sunday morning. The human chain stretched over three kilometres, filling the sand with banners and chants of "Salvem es Trenc!" The protest was called by the Grup Balear d'Ornitologia (GOB), Terraferida, and the platform Menys Turisme, Més Vida, as part of the broader "Mallorca al límit" campaign against tourist overcrowding.
Mallorca is not an amusement park that politicians can change whenever they want.
The legislative trigger
The immediate target of the protest is the so-called Ley Ómnibus, approved by the regional parliament on 26 May with votes from the Partido Popular (PP) and Vox. The law removes the requirement for parliamentary ratification when the government wants to modify key protection rules inside natural parks. Organisers say this "deslegalización" of Es Trenc means the Consell de Govern can now, by simple decree, lift bans on large energy infrastructure, new overhead power lines, fishing in the salt lagoons, hunting on the beach, and extraction of groundwater or sand.
- Balearic parliament approves Ley Ómnibus, removing parliamentary oversight for changes to park protection rules.
- More than 10,000 people form a 3 km human chain at Es Trenc beach to demand the law's withdrawal.
The PP has a fixation on deprotecting, urbanising and carrying out different actions in the Es Trenc area.
Government pushes back
President Marga Prohens has denied any intention to weaken protections. She says the change merely aligns Es Trenc with the rest of the archipelago's parks, where all provisions are already handled by decree. The mayor of Campos, Francisca Porquer (PP), appeared at the beach in a bikini during the manifesto reading, asked for the microphone, and was asked by writer Sebastià Alzamora to respect the right to protest. Organisers accused her of provocation; she later said she only wanted to shake hands.
We are here to protect this symbolic space like Es Trenc and also to defend all natural spaces that are being deprotected and attacked by the PP-Vox pact. What they have done is deprotect and they have prepared a scenario to make it easier to change the protection regime.
Manifesto and demands
Sebastià Alzamora read a manifesto calling for the withdrawal of the strategic projects acceleration law, a halt to deregulatory provisions in the agrarian law, a total ban on rural rentals, and the removal of the 14,000-square-metre minimum plot rule from Mallorca's territorial plan. The text stressed that the demands are concrete and urgent, not utopian.
We are not asking for utopias or strange things, but concrete, realistic and, above all, urgent measures for the common good. The model the Government wants to promote is a destructive model that they have not wanted and do not want elsewhere.
A recurring fight
Sunday's protest is the third large mobilisation to protect Es Trenc in the last 40 years. The organisers described the turnout as a success and said the citizen response confirms that defence of the territory is a widely shared concern. They warned that the decree mechanism could be extended to other protected natural spaces in the future.
