Despite a 22,000-strong environmental petition and hundreds of protesting emails, the government has gone ahead regardless and given the green-light to plans for a huge tourist development alongside the Lagoa dos Salgados wetland, in the borough of Silves.
The decision comes as a slap in the face to eco-campaigners who claim the last thing the Algarve needs is another massive development that promises jobs and ends up half empty.
“It’s incredible that the Secretary of State (Paulo Lemos) – who was once involved in an NGO – could produce a document and decision such as this,” said Domingos Leitão of SPEA, Portugal’s bird conservation society.
SPEA have since sent their objection to the European Commission and are encouraging all other NGOs supporting the campaign to do likewise.
The “only viable solution now” may lie with the new CDU administration at Silves Câmara, headed by mayoress Rosa Palma, adds Leitão. Palma is known to be against “more of the same” concrete projects and keen to see an environmentally sustainable development on the 359-hectare Praia Grande site – which takes in a number of other sensitive environmental areas beside the beleaguered wetland
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For more on this developing story, see the Algarve Resident’s report in the next edition, out this Thursday.
