The Pestana hotel group is working on a project to create a huge nature reserve bordering the Odelouca dam in Silves to offer customers using its coastal hotels the opportunity to the Algarve’s natural landscape, flora and fauna.
The plan is being developed with Silves and Monchique councils, the mayors from each being positive that this new style of natural tourism is timely and could help counter the current shift of people and activity away from rural areas.
The Odelouca dam (pictured) and the adjoining Herdade da Parra are the heart of a proposed integrated development to be called Nova Serra which will include the involvement of the Institute for Nature and Forest Conservation (ICNF), Águas do Algarve and the Barlavento Development Agency which covers the six westernmost council areas.
A protocol has been signed and the project has a five year development stage which, as it is being driven by Pestana, there is a good chance this project will happen.
Pestana Group says its strategy now is focused on 'diversification of tourism and the strengthening of social and environmental policies.'
The company does not rule out the creation of an eco-tourism hotel or accommodation units at Nova Serra at a later stage but the main thing on launch is to be able to promote and offer a piece of nature, some 600 hectares, to its coastal holidaymakers.
Pedro Lopes for Pestana in the Algarve explained the hotel’s move to the countryside, "This project, if it is done in an integrated, coordinated and sustainable manner, will reduce the risk of fire in the intervention area and will enhance the territory, the local economy and culture, thus responding to the group's strategy with regard to social responsibility."
"We’ll have part of the land fenced off for wild boar, foxes and other species and already have a water line with the dam that we can use to complement our offer to hotel customers located on the coast."
Pestana also runs Pousadas de Portugal, one of whose former hotels overlooking the nearby Santa Clara reservoir was shut down as it was unprofitable. Locals say a more accurate word would be ‘un-promoted’ as the hotel overlooks the water and could have acted as a centre for nature tourism activities.
Maybe the time was wrong for Santa Clara but with Pestana aiming to use Herdade da Parra as a nature tourism centre to help part of its social responsibility remit, the project has a good chance of success.
