sustainability Article Biocultural Heritages in Mallorca: Explaining the Resilience of Peasant Landscapes within a Mediterranean Tourist Hotspot, 1870–2016 Ivan Murray 1 , Gabriel Jover-Avellà 2,* , Onofre Fullana 3 and Enric Tello 4 1 Department of Geography, University of the Balearic Islands, 07122 Palma, Spain;
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[email protected]; Tel.: +34-972-418-223 Received: 13 February 2019; Accepted: 25 March 2019; Published: 1 April 2019 Abstract: Mallorca keeps an age-old biocultural heritage embodied in their appealing landscapes, largely exploited as an intangible tourist asset. Although hotel and real estate investors ignore or despise the peasant families who still persevere in farming amidst this worldwide-known tourist hotspot, the Balearic Autonomous Government has recently started a pay-for-ecosystem-services scheme based on the tourist eco-tax collection that offers grants to farmers that keep the Majorcan cultural landscapes alive, while a growing number of them have turned organic. How has this peasant heritage survived within such a global tourist capitalist economy? We answer this question by explaining the socio-ecological transition experienced from the failure of agrarian capitalism in the island, and the ensuing peasantization process during the first half of the 20th century through a local banking-driven and market-oriented land reform.