ASMAA has launched a new door-to-door campaign in the Algarve aimed at gathering public support for council mayors in their fight against onshore fracking and offshore oil and gas exploration.
ASMAA announced that the initiative started on Monday 21 December, under the heading:
“Nem um Furo! Nem Agora, Nem no Futuro!” - 'Not one Well! Not Now and Not in the Future!'
'Not one Well! Not Now and Not in the Future!' supports AMAL and the Algarve's mayors in the 14 council areas that directly will be affected by the confirmed intent to proceed with the planned fossil fuel exploration that the Portuguese government has licenced for the Algarve.
Well informed volunteers will be going door-to-door with inforamtion leaflets and petition forms for people to sign.
The target is to reach 20% of the Algarve population in three months. If any readers want to help collect petitions, contact ASMAA at the email address below.
On Friday the 16 December 2015 in Faro, AMAL representative Jorge Botelho, representing all affected councils again confirmed after a meeting with ENMC (the Portuguese fossil fuels regulating body) that the Algarve's local councils are against any oil and gas exploration, including Fracking, in the Algarve.
According to Laurinda Seabra, ASMAA’s CEO there will be two petitions running in each council area. One to be signed by local Portuguese citizens and the other to be signed by expats, foreign investors and visitors to those areas.
In a show of support for the local councils, ASMAA is asking all Portuguese citizens, as well as expats, foreign home owners, investors and visitors to stand behind the council representatives in their aim to keep the Algarve free from offshore and onshore oil and gas exploration including fracking (hydraulic fracturing) and to sign the petitions.
ASMAA has teamed up with the Tavira in Transition Network, and now extends an invite to all other Transition Network groups, as well as any independent citizen movements in the Algarve, to participate in:
“Nem um Furo - Nem Agora, Nem no Futuro” “Not one well – Not Now and Not in the Future”
door-to-door campaign that will run for a period of 12 weeks, starting today.
Seabra’s commented, “Let’s strengthen the mayors' hands by letting our feet walk the talk. People might think that as the mayors now are involved in the anti-oil campaign that the fight is won. It is not and we need to gather support door-to-door from across the Algarve."
Support is needed as next June the drilling starts on the west coast and in September, on the south coast. This has been authorised by the government under the contracts issued to the oil companies.
Time is short and support is needed to add to the mayors' statement that the Algarve does not want oil and gas exploration in this beautiful tourist area.
Since 2012, ASMAA has actively been campaigning against oil and gas exploration in the Algarve.
ASMAA has run many awareness raising workshops attended by hundreds of local residents, many door-to-door campaigns across the entire Algarve as well as ongoing social media and electronic campaigns in an endeavour to alert local residents about the offshore and onshore oil and gas exploration threats.
ASMAA is a private Portuguese not-for-profit association started by a group of Expats and Luso-decedents that are concerned with ocean and coastal preservation. ASMAA currently collaborates with many national and international civic organisations on various issues that can potentially have a negative impact on human rights, the environment or its ecosystems.
