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Words can be interpreted in different ways. The same does not apply to numbers. Numbers are just numbers, and that’s it. Statistics from the year 2012 show that Portugal imports about 80% of the energy it consumes. Most of this comes from fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. There should be more arguments against these facts so that the situation could become more environmentally friendly. Some countries in Europe have taken great strides forward in ecological terms, in particular Germany, which now produces about 8% of its energy from biomass. What don’t we do the same in …

ECO123: What is Proforbiomed? Architect Inês Duarte (CICAE): Proforbiomed was a project financed by the MED programme lasting from 2010 to 2014, so it was concluded at the end of last year and the aim of this project was to promote the use of residual forest biomass in the Mediterranean area; it covered the whole of the Mediterranean basin, which has a very similar forestry context, and where everyone faces a serious problem of forest fires, even more now owing to global warming, which has been getting worse. This project aimed to promote the use of this biomass so as …

The number of people who take care to enquire where and how their food is produced is growing steadily. More and more people want a guarantee that their foodstuffs, whether vegetables, salads or fish, are produced locally, in an ecologically impeccable manner, and in harmony with nature. Fruit and vegetables produced oneself or grown in the region, ok; but fresh fish too? ECO123 investigates. For weeks there has been talk of little else. The idea is fascinating: it keeps them occupied and is the daily topic of conversation. This is confirmed by João Jesus (48), an independent landscape designer from …

Portugal is increasingly becoming a first-choice destination not only for the rest of Europe but also for the Portuguese themselves. And while this is good news from the economic perspective, in environment terms, there is the impact stemming from the footprints left both by travelling and by accommodation. Such simple details such as the consumption of water, foodstuffs, recycling or construction materials may end up making a fulcral difference. Thus, ECO123 presents here three hotel complexes who are as concerned about the wellbeing of their guests as they are about the planet itself without, however, giving up on any of …

Pathways to restoring a non-tourism dependent Algarve. The small village of Ameixial1, located in the council of Loulé, hosted the presentation ceremony for the final projects resulting from last autumn’s Permaculture Design Course. This presentation counted on the participation of its fifteen students and the attendance of many of the local citizens who, with a certain degree of reluctance but a lot of curiosity, began getting into, observing and questioning the students about the proposals and solutions that they had “designed”. These appeared on posters dotted around the venue and serving to facilitate the explanation and understanding of terms as …

According to numbers published by the World Tourism Organisation and covering international travel across the planet, 2013 sawged a total of 1.087 billion arrivals. The specialists expect these numbers to top 1.4 billion in 2020 and 1.8 billion in 20301. With the plane providing the most common means of transport, the quantity of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere is not only astronomical but also highly negative for the environment. According to quarterly statistical bulletin numbers 17, 18, 19 and 20 of INAC2 (the Portuguese Institute of Civil Aviation), the country’s mainland airports registered 245,079 plane movements in 2013 with …

People who are addicted to drugs are mostly in a bad way. They actually need some therapy to get off the poison. But not every addict takes the decision to detox and then have therapy: not with heroin, nor with alcohol and even less so with smoking, whatever it is that is being smoked. Many people maintain their dependencies and live well, or so they say. It’s similar in our economy. It has settled into dependency. Our economy is addicted to subsidies, especially in one business sector. In tourism, all the poison is injected by Brussels and Lisbon. This time, …

This story is set here, on our planet Earth. It is fairly certain that, in 30 years, there will be ten billion people living on the planet. +++ Population growth is going up in a negative spiral. +++ With every additional citizen on Earth, diversity and space are decreasing. +++ With the continuous growth in the world’s population, the consumption of resources also goes up, and of energy, the volume of rubbish, and stress. +++ For this lifestyle, the resource-hungry industrial economy produces more and more food, more and more cars, more and more consumer goods. +++ And global warming …

Success Stories. Just imagine that you are responsible for equipping a spaceship that is leaving Earth next year and heading for Mars, and will only return in 100 years time. What would you put on board the spaceship and give the crew to take with them so that they and the next generations would be able to travel back to Earth happy and in good health? Would you give the space- and time-travellers a share in the paper producer Portucel/Soporcel, or maize seeds produced by the agro-chemical business Monsanto, or a hundred-year bond from the Espírito Santo family? Or rather …

A Test by Uwe Heitkamp Waiting for the bus. I count the passing cars; one/one, two/one, three/one, four/one, five/one, six/one, seven/one, eight/one, nine/one, ten/one, eleven/one, twelve/two. That was it, the first car with two people inside. I walk 1.1 km to the nearest bus stop. On the way there, my neighbour asks me why I’m walking? Has your car broken down? No, no, I answered, I’m leaving my car in the garage for a month. She looks at me sceptically, while she waters the flowers in front of her house with a hose pipe. My neighbours have got a weakness …