Warn of “many other requests” for prospecting and research in pipeline
ZERO, one of Portugal’s largest environmental associations, has reacted to the conditional favourable opinion given to a lithium mining project in Montalegre, warning that it belies the “very significant impacts” of the plan.
Speaking to Lusa, ZERO’s Nuno Forner said: “We are concerned that the compensation and minimisation measures mention the possibility of the population being compensated in monetary terms so that they can buy another house or another plot of land, or even be compensated for ending their agricultural activity”. This “clearly shows that this is a project with major impacts”, particularly on the social component, which “can hardly be minimised” and that “the solution will be to push people out of the area“.
Forner also alluded to the separating of the mine from the refinery (which will need an environmental impact assessment of its own), saying this is “absurd”.
“Separating the project into several parts doesn’t make any sense,” he said
“It’s worrying”, he went on. “We are talking once again about a project with high environmental, social and economic impacts, which is the subject of a favourable conditional opinion” even when local people are so adamantly against that they are ready to take the matter to the highest courts.
What has become clear since APA’s conditional favourable opinion is that the conditions would require enormous investment on the part of the concession (in this case, Lusorecursos Lithium Portugal – a company with no previous mining experience, and which has been criticised for lacking professionalism).
The project will also require the changing of the local municipality’s territorial plan (PDM).
“There is a certain amount of pressure for the municipality to recognise the importance of this project and amend the PDM,” Forner remarked.
At the same time, Montalegre mayor Fátima Fernandes has vowed that the struggle against the mine “has not stopped here” – suggesting whatever amount of pressure is applied, it may not have the desired results.
This is the second lithium mining project to be ‘approved’ in Portugal this year. It follows the favourable environmental impact assessment, again subject to conditions, of the Barroso mine – proposed by British company Savannah Resources, and again the subject of unrelenting local opposition.
“We mustn’t forget that there are a number of requests for prospecting and research that, if approved, will put more pressure on mining in Barroso, and the cumulative effects will be very significant,” Forner stressed.
The classification of Barroso as a World Agricultural Heritage Site will certainly “collapse” because “the region will be completely de-characterised in terms of the landscape”. (Decharacterised being a diplomatic substitute for ‘indelibly transformed’)
The Romano mine has a total area of 825.4 hectares in the Morgade area of Montalegre for its disposal, and a lifespan of 13 years, “which could be extended”.
Reports have alluded to the project requiring a €650 million investment – an amount again that may not be ‘in the bag’ for Lusocrecursos, which was described in the past as a company “with little capital” behind it.
Back in 2019, the project was estimated at likely to cost €300 million. Four years on, that figure has more than doubled.
Local people fighting against this project, meantime, are adamant: “We’re not giving up”, says Montalegre Com Vida activist Armando Pinto, who has no doubts that the mine “will destroy the region and have devastating effects” on local populations.
As this text went up online, PAN (peoples animals nature party) added its criticism to APA’s decision, saying: “We can’t understand this government’s strategy (…) one day it proclaims the defence of biodiversity protection and another it contributes to the decline of endangered species and habitats (…) there is a kind of subversion of the parameters being analysed in environmental impact assessment procedures, in which economic factors increasingly seem to take precedence over natural and landscape values, the conservation of which should clearly be the priority”.
