Mud island owners seek a clean break
Celebrities covered in mud have frolicked on its beaches for decades, now the Mediterranean island of Espalmador is up for sale at a cut price – but only to the Spanish state.
The Duke of Cambridge visited the tiny uninhabited island, which is near Ibiza, in 2006 during one of his first foreign holidays with the future Duchess of Cambridge. It has also attracted the likes of Paris Hilton and the Countess of Wessex.
The prince, like many other visitors, enjoyed a mud bath – washing off the slime in the sea, leaving the clear waters a turgid colour.
Claims that the mud has health benefits are a myth say locals, and the practice has been banned – but tourists often flout the bylaw.
Now, the island’s well-off owners want to sell it at a cut price to the Balearic Islands government in the hope the authorities will protect its fragile environment from this and other excesses of careless tourists.
Norman Cinnamond and his sister Rosy, who are from an Anglo-Spanish family based in Barcelona, are willing to accept €18 million (NZ$27.7m) from the state for the island – well below the market price. In the past, the family has received offers from private investors of up to €30 million.
They hope that if the Balearic Islands government buys the island it will have the power to halt mud bathing and some of the other activities that are damaging the beach, the dunes and the turquoise seas around the island.
Tens of thousands of tourists visit the island every year, walking across the sea at low tide from Formentera or arriving by boat from Ibiza.
Last week, a flare thrown from a yacht moored off the island started a forest fire that destroyed nearly 12,000 sq m.
The 136ha island has no toilets, so tourists relieve themselves in the open air and trample over preserved dunes. Yachts dropping anchors close to the shore destroy posidonia, a preserved seagrass.
The Cinnamond family owns everything on the island, including its only two houses, but the beaches are public property. They say that they lack the financial resources or legal authority to protect the island from the ravages of the tourist invasion.
Cinnamond, an architect, said: ‘‘The reality is Espalmador is a precious but fragile tourist destination of high value in an economy that depends heavily on tourism.
Tens of thousands of tourists visit the island each year with an environmental cost but without contributing anything to its conservation.
‘‘A new model that allows tourist management to preserve the island is essential.
‘‘All the problems of the island are caused by inadequate management of the public land, principally the beaches and the dunes.’’
He suggested that the Balearic Island authorities could crack down on tourists who were flouting the bylaws, which ban mud bathing, holding barbecues and walking across the dunes.
Yachts are banned from dropping anchor close to the shore but many ignore this. The authorities could also attract private sponsors to help to pay for the upkeep of the island, Cinnamond said.
The Balearic Islands government has not responded to the offer.
Cinnamond’s grandfather, Bernardo Cinnamond James, a British textile baron, fell in love with the island while on a sailing trip and bought it in 1929 from a community of fishermen.
He entertained members of the Spanish royal family, Prince Rainier of Monaco and Sir Edmund Hillary on the island.
If the Balearic Islands government buys the island, it could set a precedent for trying to build a more sustainable model of tourism in Spain.
Mass tourism has proved a threat to other popular destinations. In Barcelona, residents staged demonstrations in protest at the antics of drunken tourists who were parading naked in the streets and holding all night parties.
Ada Colau, the left-wing mayor of Barcelona, introduced a oneyear freeze on the construction of five-star hotels and is drawing up a plan to stop the number of tourists swamping the most popular areas of the city.
In Palma, which is the capital of Majorca, exasperated locals painted messages on walls reading: ‘‘Tourists go home.’’