BotGarden

Annual subscription: now only €15 down from €18   Planting a tree reduces your CO2 footprint. Our 2025 goal is ‘Zero Emissions’. Subscribing to ECO123 ONLINE means playing your part in financing Monchique’s Botanic Forest Garden: planting trees, irrigation, forest care. Up to 15 January 2022 we offer 500 annual online subscriptions at the reduced price of €15 each, in a crowdfunding drive to raise €7,500 (incl. 6% VAT = €450). With this capital ECO123 will fund the forest fire emergency sprinkler system. Shifting 250 metres of soil €3,500, material (pumps, pipes, return valves, sprinklers) €2,600. Plus 23% VAT (€1,400). Grand …

Saturday the 29th of May 2021 There is no me (you) and my (your) environment, only me (you) as an integrative part of this one world: an integral part rather than separated from it. There is a close bond between ourselves and nature, the living environment making up this planet. Is this true? Since starting to live in the forest I feel closer to the elements, now more so than ever. What does this mean in practice? For one, I’ve already had to familiarise myself with the consequences of climate change several times over. And I feel that I have …

Saturday the 24th of April 2021 So here’s the bad news. The EU counts among the major drivers of forest destruction. This is shown in a report just published by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) looking at the consequences of international trade on deforestation and the destruction of natural habitats between 2005 and 2017. This means that 16 per cent of global tropic forest logging in connection with international trade are down to the EU. This places the EU at number two in the „World Ranking of Forest Destroyers“, behind China (24 per cent) and ahead of India (9 per …

Saturday, 20th March 2021 It was a tragic accident. He fell at home, in his garden, from a height of three metres, off his ladder, sustaining lethal injuries. My friend Carlos has now entered the eternal hunting grounds. For me he was an Indian, who came to Monchique from the Alentejo and a foreigner in a community, a friend of nature, wise and modest, calm and well-read, a rather quiet but always attentive fellow. There will be no second Carlos in this world. He gifted us wonderful trees, two pecan nut trees, a chestnut and a cork oak, a token …

Saturday 13 of March 2021 A few days ago I witnessed a very interesting spectacle. One of the reasons for participating in a videoconference with 67 people was to learn how the situation of the forests in Portugal might be improved, but also to present my idea of the Botanic Forest Garden in Monchique. However, all of a sudden the Internet started to take on a life of its own. Someone was stuttering and uttering load animal groans from the dark recess of the World Wide Web, seemingly trying to take part in the discussion, however in their very own …

Saturday 6th of March 2021 This coming Tuesday, 9 March, from 6pm onwards, an exciting ONLINE debate on the Forest of the South will take place. The debate is hosted by the „Floresta Autóctone“ citizens’ action group, whose initiators belong to Portugal’s longest-established association dedicated to nature conservation, CAMPO ABERTO from Oporto. The main topic of debate will be the opportunities and programmes to free forested plots of land of the invasive eucalyptus monoculture which foments climate change through forest fires, and to reforest these plots with native tree species, recreating plant diversity. To this end four moderators from Aljezur …