This afternoon at Molí de Sal, the director of Puleva, Ignacio Elola, handed over to the administration's environment secretary, Daisee Aguilera, and tourism advisory chief, Carlos Bernús, a cheque for €11,000 to adopt 11,000 square metres (m2) of posidonia oceanica, making Puleva the Save Posidonia Project's largest private donator to date.

Secretary Aguilera thanked the company for its contribution, which she said would “drive projects that safeguard Formentera's uniquely important underwater plant”. Posidonia, she explained, is crucial because it acts as a buffer for local beaches and landscapes. “At the end of the day, it's what makes our island into the paradise it is”.

For his part, the director of the Lactalis Puleva group said that the company is "committed so much more than food” and pledged sensitivity to those ecosystems in place where the Puleva company treads.

This year, Puleva held its annual convention on Eivissa and Formentera, bringing some 140 workers to the islands. Today, the company's employees got a close-up look at Formentera's undersea riches on a boat ride with Secretary Aguilera through Ses Salines nature preserve.

Eighty-four thousand square metres sponsored so far
More than 84,000m2 have already been adopted through private and business donations. Money collected to November 1 will go to fund projects aimed at protecting posidonia. Donations are still being accepted—one euro per square metre—at https://www.saveposidoniaproject.org.

Conditions for project proposals can be found on three websites: the Balearic Islands employment office (BOIB), the Formentera Council and the Save Posidonia Project. Proposals will be accepted over two months starting November 1, when donations have closed.

The Save Posidonia Project Festival is set to begin next week, October 12-15.

Environment secretary Daisee Aguilera was joined by Iván Tolsà, a spokesman for Ecovidrio, at a presentation of a recycling campaign hitting local schools this week. Pupils from two of the island's schools—in La Mola and Sant Francesc's Mestre Lluís Andreu—will participate in activities related to “Suma vidre, a l'escola!” (or, translated literally into English, “Adding glass, at school!”), which began September 28 and is scheduled to conclude October 6.

The glass-object recycling bins popping up in recent weeks at island schools are part of a double effort, first, to raise awareness about the importance of recycling glass and the direct environmental impact of doing so, and second, to encourage consumers to buy glass-packaged products, which, considering their 100% rate of recapture, represent of the cleanest options. Educators have attempted to shine a light on the different kinds of glass that can be recycled, part of a wider effort to prevent non-recyclable objects from winding up in recycling bins.

All the recyclables brought in so far will be picked up tomorrow. Whichever school manages to generate the most kilos of glass per pupil will take part in a special arts and crafts workshop on Friday. The fruits of participants' labours will be donated to the Save Posidonia Project. Secretary Daisee Aguilera highlighted the importance of educating children about recycling and hailed the initiative's related activities.

The nonprofit group Ecovidrio has been responsible for glass recycling in Spain since 1998. The company oversees the recycling process from start to finish, including differentiated collection, transport, processing of glass receptacles and their successive transformation into objects of commercial value.

This Thursday, September 28 in the Formentera Council's hall of ceremonies (sala d'Actes), a 7.30pm info session will be held on the pine processionary caterpillar on the island. Sandra Closa, head of the Palma government's healthy forests service, will tell crowds about the ins and outs of the CiF/Govern balear's control efforts this October.

The first plague of the pine processionary on the island was detected in 2007 and efforts to stem its spread have been afoot since then. One method involving pheromone traps began afresh in mid-July, when crews took to the island's wooded areas to install 1,102 traps. In mid-September, a tally of captured caterpillars indicated a upturn since 2016: 4,280 in 2017 compared to 2,125 one year earlier.

In an attempt to control the pest, officials have determined to resort to additional methods, including aerial treatment with a biological phytosanitary product.

Dusting
The aerial treatment involves dusting pine trees from a helicopter equipped with differential GPS, a technology that allows operators full control of dosage and affected areas. The process uses extremely low quantities of bacillus thuringiensis/kurstaki, a bacterium which exists naturally on the soil and on plants. The product, which quickly degrades under UV rays, disappears from leaves within days, does not effect bees and is used to control pests like mosquitos.

From October 2 some 1,500 hectares of land on the island will be submitted to a double dusting. Meteorological conditions like temperature, wind, relative humidity and rainfall and the caterpillars' particular stage of development will affect the nature of treatment.

It is worth noting that in 2014 a planned dusting using the chemical agent diflubenzuron was rejected by the people of Formentera. The current treatment has been rubber-stamped by the Consell d'Entitats' land and environment committee, which received input from island beekeepers and hunters, and the Formentera Council plenary.

Other treatments
Crews will also push forward with a second kind of treatment, which targets the caterpillars' nests. The pine processionary protects itself from the winter cold by building itself nests. Since 2010, with help from the Balearic nature institute and forest service staff, the regional department of environment and the Formentera Council have embarked on nest removal campaigns.

Another method entails using predators of the caterpillar. Crews have already set up some shelters for bats and approximately forty more will be installed next month.

Leaflets to educate residents about the pine processionary, printed by the Formentera Council and the Govern balear, will be handed out at the talk and in other places.

Staff at the Formentera Council's two escoletes, or “nurseries,” attended a course today aimed at promoting good waste disposal habits. An environmental educator spoke to the workers about how to group rubbish before tossing it out and where it goes once it's binned. Environment secretary Daisee Aguilera gave an indication of the answer: the Deixalleria, or “rubbish tip,” as it's called in English. Said Aguilera of the course, “attendees got a sense of just how much it really costs to dispose of garbage”. The workshop was held at 11.30am this morning in the conference hall of the Office of Culture.

According to Aguilera, when a visit to assess bin habits confirmed that recycling was already routine in the kitchen, the teachers' lounge and common areas of the nurseries, the educator proposed implementing separate recycling bags in classrooms this year. The workshop could potentially be extended to other schools on the island.

Student outings will also be organised to the Deixalleria and local transfer plant. It's all part of an effort, says Aguilera, to give youngsters “an up-close look at what happens when they toss something in the bin”. Adults can get in on the visits too—just another way to make sure people know what becomes of their waste. Anyone interested in participating can send an e-mail to infoambiental@conselldeformentera.cat.