Aliança Mar i Terra di Mallorca
🌐Bioregional regeneration work on Mallorca operates through multiple interconnected initiatives, from the quiet facilitation work of Daniel Christian Wahl to the formal Aliança Mar i Terra di Mallorca formed in 2022. The work centers on cultivating conditions for deep, place-based transformation through convening, listening, and connecting.
Bioregional Context
Mallorca is an island within the Mediterranean's Balearic archipelago. Its island nature creates what seemed like clear bioregional boundaries at first, though the work has revealed complexities in managing it as a "fractal bioregion" of various islands within an archipelago biome. The region's ecological balance and social cohesion are severely threatened by over-tourism and climate change.
- Network Affiliation
- Commonland
Background
Mallorca's ecological balance and social cohesion are severely threatened by over-tourism and climate change. Climate change happens at a rate 20% higher in the Mediterranean than elsewhere in the world. Many of Mallorca's native species are facing existential challenges from ecological changes, such as warming seas. The boom in land speculation from tourism has also caused a rapid increase in land and housing prices, negatively affecting local communities. There is growing recognition of the need to regenerate the island's land- and seascapes and tackle negative socio-economic trends resulting from human activities.
Origins and Network
The Aliança Mar i Terra di Mallorca was formed in 2022 by a consortium of local organisations facing similar challenges who decided to work towards aligned objectives together. The alliance aims to support the regeneration of regional land and sea habitats on the island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean Sea. Support from Commonland as of 2022 enabled the alliance to start working together formally.
The alliance looks toward a more balanced socioeconomic future: a more connected community co-creating biodiverse, thriving local ecosystems; a local economy grounded in a healthy agroecosystem able to supply a substantial share of food and other resources; and a systemic view in which land and sea are addressed together.
Activities
Tourism Industry Transformation Initiative
Mallorca's economy is dominated by tourism, which comprises approximately 80% of economic activity. This creates a unique context for regeneration work—tourism is both part of the problem and a necessary intervention point. The alliance has started to work on crafting partnerships within the tourism industry in order to start catalyzing change. The work included producing documentary series highlighting regenerative practices around the island called "Isla Viva".
Sacred Pathways Revitalization Project
The project uses ancient infrastructure as a tool for contemporary environmental awareness and cultural reconnection, honoring both pre-Christian and Catholic heritage. Building on the foundation of Jaime Ferrer's "Terra, Alma, Societat" work, they co-initiated a project that brought back to life seven ancient pilgrimage routes to the holy forest of Lluc. Reviving those routes—which reach back toward pre-Christian pilgrimage and sites used by prehistoric communities up to 5,000 years ago—opened a conversation about how people engage with the landscape today.
Foodshed and Energyshed Mapping
On Mallorca, the alliance has used foodshed and energyshed mapping to trace how food and energy move through landscapes and settlements—mapping relational “footprints” rather than only administrative boundaries. The aim is practical: to surface leverage points for regenerative projects rooted in how the island actually feeds and powers itself.
Educational Work with Schools
The work is less a single education program than a series of intentional conversations across communities. Projects with schools brought Balearic teachers into a “soil, soul, and society” dialogue; parallel conversations on local food helped give rise to Slow Food Balear. Multiple intervention points have seeded connections that ripple through the island’s social and ecological systems.
Vision and Legacy
On Mallorca, this understanding informs a patient, relationship-based approach to bioregional regeneration—one that dances with the system rather than trying to control it, and that celebrates when others take up the work as their own. The work recognizes that the education and stewardship efforts of the organizations are already very strong and can be linked to physical places with active ongoing projects.
Opportunities ahead include: restoring land and seascapes holistically as interconnected systems; ending industry silos that currently reduce impact; creating a clear, long-term landscape vision that enables Mallorca to shift and diversify its economic model to the benefit of local communities and nature alike; developing new regenerative business models that bring revenues to local communities, including new eco-tourism models that involve outsiders in supporting landscape restoration; and creating greater impact through the Alliance—collaboration allows for synergies between different organisational projects and greater resilience to collective obstacles.