Refuses to accept government’s support of company ‘destroying ways of life’
The government’s support of a company seeking to open pit mine lithium in a World Agricultural Heritage site – where the community and municipality reject the prospect wholeheartedly – saw further protest on Saturday.
While hundreds demonstrated in Lisbon for ‘world peace’, a smaller crowd was gathered in the village of Covas do Barroso, asking simply to be left alone.
The community, in Boticas, Vila Real, has been fighting tooth and nail against the plan by Savannah Resources/ Savannah Lithium for years.
Resistance up until now has seen the company face numerous hitches and delays – but recently the government authorised a form of ‘administrative easement’, allowing Savannah access to land it doesn’t own.
This has seen outrage from the locals and their mayor. And, thanks to 2025 being the year of municipal elections, Bloco de Esquerda was at yesterday’s protest, stressing it is “in the public interest to defend those who are mobilising against lithium”.
Bloco coordinator Mariana Mortágua told news cameras that projects like Savannah’s are “destroying the interior. They are not the model of development for this country”.
Antipathy towards this project has been endlessly detailed, and endlessly discounted, on the basis that lithium mining is part of the European focus on decarbonisation and ‘critical raw materials’.
The fact that mining impacts the environment and rural ways of life appears to be seen as ‘just one of those things’ – which is what has so angered the local population, which claims ‘there is no democracy’ if decisions are made over their heads, without consideration of the negative consequences.
Up till now, however, their fight has had little institutional support (beyond that of the local municipality). With local elections on the horizon this all looks like changing:
“It is very important to give support to these people who are here defending the country,’ said Mariana Mortágua, stressing that “we cannot have two discourses: on the one hand the government and parties that say they want to respect the environment, ecological transition, a new type of economy and develop the interior, and at the same time the only answer they have for the land in the interior is to dig it up, make mines and extract ore to be refined in another country, leaving these people condemned. This is not a development model for our country!”
For the Bloc’s coordinator, the population “has every reason not to want” a project that will “pierce this area, which is a World Agricultural Heritage Site” and that “has overridden the interests and position of the population that doesn’t want mines in the territory and considers that they would “destroy the landscape, contaminate the environment and jeopardise the safety of the population”.
“The public interest is to defend those who are mobilising against lithium,” she continued, pointing the finger at the “very powerful financial interests surrounding extraction”, and at the “national shareholders of this company, who also own a media channel, which by chance never comes to these protests…”
“If Portugal wants to have a future, it cannot insist on making the mistakes of the past,” Mortágua continued, referring to the fact that the people of Covas do Barroso are not the only ones in the country fighting against lithium extraction projects. “If the project was good for the region, the people here would be the first to take an interest,” she added.
Campaigners, buoyed by outside support, stressed they are “not afraid to continue fighting for what is ours and for the good of all”. This struggle has made it to the international press, to Cannes Film Festival and to the European Union.
Savannah is focused on starting mining in 2027 – but the community is every bit as focused on thwarting that ambition. This may be the ‘perfect year’ for Covas do Barroso to get the political support it needs.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
