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Packaging-free vegan summer menu for yoghurt lovers. In this vegan summer menu, I have paid attention as far as possible to the use of ingredients that can be purchased without disposable packaging. The aim is to pass on ideas about ways to avoid rubbish in the long term. The main ingredient is plant-based, home-made yoghurt, which is a common thread running through my menu planning. It all starts with the production of one’s own plant milk. We could buy milk of course, but in a household that consumes milk daily too much unnecessary plastic or too many Tetrapak cartons accumulate. …

Press release Environmental NGO A Nossa Terra demands government action once and for all over the threat of mining to Picota hillside, in Monchique. The threat which “somehow came to a standstill” six years ago, is once again menacing populations, and a local economy based on sustainable rural tourism.On the 23th of February 2017, a request by mining company Felmica was published in government newspaper Diário de República, reference: Aviso n.º 2052/2017, DR n.º 39, 2.ª Série de 23 de fevreiro. This was a repeat of the request Felmica made in 2011 for an area of 161.2 hectares. This time, …

Learning the shoemaker’s craft! Monchique’s first shoemaking apprentice took his leave from his parents on Monday, 25th April, and set off for Austria. José Pedro Mira Nunes, aged 23, had applied to ECO123 for the shoemaking apprenticeship training project. In his application, he wrote about a longstanding family tradition dating back to the time of his great-grandfather, who was making shoes in Monchique in the 1960s. The jury selected him as the first of two candidates who were suitable for this training. Having arrived at GEA in Schrems, five kilometres from the Czech border, after a three-day train journey, he …

Hydroponics + Aquaculture = Aquaponics. The first ECO123 workshop took place over a long weekend in Caldas de Monchique and was attended by twelve participants from all over Portugal. The trainers, João Cotter from Lisbon and João Vidal Lemos from Aveiro, started with a short theoretical presentation in the hotel and then all the participants moved from the seminar room to the garden. There, they inaugurated the two-by-five-metre plant pond. The first lettuce, courgette, tomato and melon seedlings were placed in the water in small baskets. The first fish from local waters were four small largemouth bass (achigã) that were …

The Sunsailer 7.0 is the first electro-solar boat to be built by the SunConcept company, in Olhão. The system of this boat, which is seven metres long and capable of accommodating up to seven people, which can be driven by anyone with a “carta de marinheiro” (sailor’s licence), allows for noise-free use, with no water pollution and no fuel costs. “It is essentially about demonstrating a concern for the environment,” says Jorge Severino, the partner responsible for the technical side. Owners can also install a sail or an igloo tent system. With two, six-horsepower electric outboard motors, the boat can …

Volker Gassner (l-r), spokesman Greenpeace Germany, Jürgen Knirsch, trade expert, and Stefan Krug, Director of the Political Representation Greenpeace Germany, speaking on 02.05.2016 on the re: publica in Berlin. The environmental organization announced at the press conference that makes it public secret TTIP papers. See the file here:

Fig, carob, almond, honey and flower of salt are the ingredients of the 100% natural Querença Energy Bar (BEQ), made from the products of the Algarve barrocal; it comes in two versions, one for athletes, the other for the general public and children. The Querença Energy Bar (BEQ) came into being through a partnership between the Querença Project and the University of Algarve with the aim of taking young people with university degrees to the interior of the municipality of Loulé to develop new ideas and put the region’s natural resources to good use. “The idea is to use indigenous …