Environmental activists who failed in their bid to try and save over 1,820 protected cork oaks from being cut down to make way for a wind farm project in Sines say they will not give up their campaign for justice – even if it means going to international courts once all “possibilities in Portuguese courts are exhausted”.
For now, the two movements (Juntos Vamos Salvar os Sobreiros de Morgavel, and Regenerativa) have appealed to the Central Administrative Court for the South against the throwing out of their previous injunction to stop the trees being felled.
This was a particularly grim moment in environmental conservation when the then Socialist government deemed it was ‘essential public interest’ to raze almost 2,000 trees in order to erect wind turbines promoted by the Moncorvo Wind Farm company.
This far many of the trees have indeed been cut down, but not all – which is why activists are not giving up.
