The Left Bloc's national executive wants to safeguard natural wetland in Lagoa and to see an end to plans for yet another supermarket.
A Bloquista statement to the press is insistent that the natural area, from which the city derived its name, "is in imminent danger of being totally destroyed."
The draft resolution has been presented to parliament to safeguard the Alagoas Branncas zone, a wetland of significant environmental and patrimonial interest located on the south side of Lagoa between the EN125 and the recently built Apolónia and Aldi supermarkets. Lagoa also has a Pingo Doce, an Intermarché and a Pão de Açúcar supermarket.
Sonae Group, owner of the Continente supermarket chain, has not confirmed the site is one of theirs but whichever business is planning this destruction of an important natural area, it can not remain hidden behind intermediaries for much longer.
Lagoa locals point to a derelict site alongside the EN125 that could be turned into a supermarket without concreting over yet more of the Algarve’s rapidly disappearing countryside.
The local mayor ducked the environmental issue when it was put to him by a feisty protest group, stating only that the site was granted permission ages ago and there’s nothing he can do about it. There is, it is just that he can’t be bothered or that the local rates income from a supermarket is too much of a temptation.
In the document submitted to the Assembly of the Republic, the Left Bloc MPs recommend the Government takes the necessary measures to safeguard this seasonal freshwater wetland, prevent its imminent destruction and to carry out a detailed study of the space with a view to having it classified as a protected natural space.
The wetland area has been studied by ornithologists who have recorded more than 70 species of birds, many of them rare and protected. This is the key reason why environmental associations such as the Portuguese Society for the Study of Birds and Almargem consider the area to have natural values that qualify it as a Ramsar network site and should that it should be properly classified.
Protestors and the Left Bloc say the zone is in imminent risk of being totally destroyed by the establishment of a supermarket, a situation that would be an irreparable loss for the municipality of Lagoa and for the Algarve.
“Higher values such as the protection and conservation of rare species in our country are at stake,” reads the petition.
Then there is the seasonality argument as the region’s high tourist flow is predominantly in the summertime. Winter tourists interested in nature tourism, in particular birdwatching, should be encouraged with the Algarve and Alentejo regions considered as the best areas from which to observe migratory birds from all over Europe.
The MPs consider the reclassification of the supermarket site as a priority and have called for a survey to be carried out by Institute of Nature Conservation.
