Action E3.Setting up exhibitions.
Partner: Direcció general de Caça, protecció d'espècies i educació ambiental. Direcció general de Biodiversitat.

Aims:

To educate the general public on the importance of preserving Posidonia’s habitat and on the potential threats it is subject to, by organizing and setting up three permanent exhibitions on the islands of Majorca, Minorca and Formentera. The exhibitions include the most interesting aspects of the ecosystem of Posidonia fields and its associated organisms.

Detailed implementation of the activity:
Three permanent exhibitions installations were set up which included explanations on Posidonia’s habitats situated in SCI areas within protected natural spaces—or very near to them—off the islands of Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The goal was to educate visitors of the Parks and SCI areas on the importance and value of said ecosystems and the threatening factors which endanger them.

The General Directorate of Hunting, Protection of the Species and Environmental Education and the General Directorate of Biodiversity developed and supervised the contents of the exhibitions, while the actual installation of the exhibitions was outsourced to a firm by means of a subcontract.

The exhibitions include:

1. Description of Posidonia oceanica: what it looks like, ecology, where it lives, etc....
2.The ecosystem associated to Posidonia fields: components, value, relations, etc....
3. Location of fields situated in territorial waters of the Balearic Islands.
4. Main threatening factors and corrective measures.
5. Definition of LIC area: where situated in the Balearics, importance of the same, norms and regulations.
6. Description of the LIFE Posidonia project: aims, actions, results, etc.
7. Code of good practises.

The three exhibitions are installed at the Centro de Ca’n Marroig on the island of Formentera; the Educational Exhibition Centre Rodríguez Femeninas at the Natural Park of s’Albufera des Grau on the island of Minorca; and the Educational Exhibition Centre at l’Albufera on the island of Majorca.

In reference to visitors of each exhibition:

The exhibition on the island of Majorca installed at the Information Centre of the Natural Park of s’Albufera received 57,979 visitors in 2005. Around 90,000 visitors are expected this year as by the month of September the number of people visiting the exhibition had already exceeded the number who had come in the whole of the previous year.

The exhibition on the island of Minorca installed at the Educational Exhibition Centre at s’Albufera des Grau welcomed 11,499 visitors in 2005. Around 19,000 visitors are expected in 2006.

The exhibition on the island of Formentera installed at Ca’n Marroig will shortly be moved to other locations on the island of Ibiza so that it may receive visitors in numbers more similar to those of the other exhibitions. This decision was made as it was considered advisable to make the exhibition itinerant round the island of Ibiza in order to reach more people.

The exhibition set up at s’Albufera was also set up at the aforementioned “II Fira Ecológica” (Ecology Fair) during which it was seen by numerous school children on guided tours.
Thanks to all of the above, it is considered that the aims of this Action have been met as
more than the initially previewed 25,000 people have visited the exhibitions.

POSTERS AT THE CA’N MARROIG EXHIBITON (FORMENTERA)