Tabarca

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In this map of Santa Pola (dark red), Tabarca is on the right and Alicante (Alacant) on the right upper corner.

Tabarca is a Spanish islet located in the Mediterranean Sea, close to the town of Santa Pola, in the Alicante province. Tabarca is the smallest permanently inhabitted islet in Spain, it is currently known for its Marine reserve.

Not to be confused with its homophone fellow Tunisian island of Tabarka.

1 Geography
2 History
3 Ecology
4 Sources and External links

[edit] Geography

Tabarca, Alicante

Despite being much more socially and economically related to the fishing port of Santa Pola, the tiny island of Tabarca is a part of the city of Alicante. Administratively, it is managed as a rural district of Alicante, jointly with el Palmeral, Aiguamarga and Urbanova.

There local census (2004) is 98 inhabitants and it postal code is 03138.

Tabarca's geographic coordinates are 39° 10° North and 0° 28° East. The islet is 1750 meters long, with a maximum breadth of 300 meters and absolutely flat. Almost next to the main islet lie the islets of la Nao, la Galera and la Cantera. It lies approximately 8 nautical miles (15 km) south south east from Alicante and 5 nautical miles (9 km) east south east from Santa Pola.

It is worth mentioning the church and the walls in the west part of the island, which is the traditionally inhabited part. The houses are short and the only high buildings are the church and the lighthouse.

Tourism is the main economical activity, especially during the summer. There are several boats connecting Tabarca with Alicante, Santa Pola and Torrevieja, with higher frequencies during summer time.

The tiny island has become a popular day trip destination either from Alicante or Santa Pola, with its quiet fishing village offering an old fort, several fresh seafood restaurants, a rocky beach with clear turquoise water, several coves and tidal pools ideal for bathing.

[edit] History

Before 1700, the island was known as Isla de Sant Pau ('Saint Paul's Island') or Illa Plana ('Flat Island'). Believed to be the island that St. Paul disembarked on, the island was a refuge for Barbary pirates up to the end of the 18th century.

Its Tunisian fellow island of Tabarka -after which the Spanish one is named- was a part of the Republic of Genoa till 1741 when it was subdued by the Bey of Tunis and later by the King of Algeria. In 1760, Carlos III ordered the fortification and repopulation of the Spanish island. A group of rescued Genoese near the coast of Tunisia, mostly coming from the Tunisian island of Tabarka, were settled here. The present name of Nova Tabarca ("New Tabarca" in Latin) was given by King Carlos III in 1768, after the above-mentioned, now Tunisian island of Tabarka, an old Spanish^{[citation needed]} possession, from where the first settlers of the Spanish island came: about 300 captives of the pirates, mostly Genoese fishermen, were, thanks to efforts of two Bernardine order members, Friar Almanaya and Friar Juan of the Virgin, freed on payment of 1,200 pesetas^{[citation needed]} of the time for each one of them. This way, besides liberating the captives, the king repopulated this desert island, which the North African corsaries had earlier used as a platform for their pirate attacks on the Levantine coast. Once released the Genoese were first moved to Alicante, where they provisionally lived in the Jesuitic School, empty after the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain. Finally, the Genoese were moved to the island jointly with a Spanish garrison. The military engineer Fernando Méndez Ras planned a fortified town and walls, bulwarks, warehouses and houses were built. From 1770, the island was known as Nueva Tabarca ('New Tabarca').

Despite the fact that the Genoese assimilated and shifted their language into Valencian and, later on, Spanish (both are the current languages spoken in the islet), the Genoese descent of the settlers still can be noticed today after the surnames of Italian origin common in the islet, such as Chacopino, Parodi, Russo...

The island is sister city with Carloforte, in San Pietro Island, which was also populated with Genoese from the Tunisian Tabarka.

The gateways are still viewable as well as the Governor's House (nowadays a hotel) and the church of St Peter and St. Paul. concluded in 1779.

In 1850 the governor and the garrison were removed. At the end of the 19th century, the island had a population of around 1000 people mainly devoted to fishing. Now, the permanent population is around 50 making Tabarca the tiniest Spanish islet populated on a stable basis all year long, although this number is multiplied by ten during the touristic season in summer.

The main activity of the local population is related to fishing and the fish market of Santa Pola's port whereas tourism turns into the main of the island's resources during summer, specially July and August.

[edit] Ecology

Tabarca is a protected marine reserve Reserva marina de la Isla de Tabarca, declared a Zone of Special Protection for the Birds by the EU, with a varied marine fauna (lubinas, mere, congrios, gilded etc.). It has very transparent and unpolluted waters. The island is formed by materials of volcanic origin on which limestone micénicas and quaternary deposits have settled. Natural reserve. Tabarca was the last Spanish Mediterranean location where the very endangered Mediterranean monk seal successfully bred before it became extinct in this part of its former distribution range (which happened sometime during the 1960s). This gives an idea of the high quality of the waters around the island in terms of marine ecology.

Therefore waters around Tabarca were declared a Marine reserve in 1986, the first of its kind in Spain. This status was mainly granted due to its submarine posidonia prairie, which is the largest in the Spanish Mediterranean and has an extraordinary ecological value due in terms of marine fauna and flora.

In order to both enhance the marine biodiversity and protect it from fishing, an artificial reef was laid near the island by the Marine reserve authority.