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At nine in the morning on a Friday in October, more than 100 activists from the Flamingo association from Corroios and A Nossa Terra from Monchique met on the 902-metre-high peak of Foía in the Monchique mountains. They had brought around 1,000 young oak trees (carvalho canariensis) from their nursery with them. In the woods that had earlier been destroyed by forest fires, Luís Grade, the deputy mayor, had prepared four 15-hectare areas of forest with colleagues from the town council (see photo) where new trees were to be planted. The roots of the eucalyptus trees that dominate all other …

Social agriculture increasingly represents a feasible innovative approach to bringing about economic empowerment and the social inclusion of vulnerable persons and families through agriculture based resources. Falling within MAIE – the Multifunctional Agriculture Initiative of Europe, in partnership with representatives from Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Finland, AgroBio – the Portuguese Organic Agriculture Association staged a social agriculture training program at the Higher Agrarian Institute of Coimbra on 30th, 31st October and 1st November. With the audience made up both of farmers and social welfare professionals, the core objective of this social agriculture training program …

In the current times, we have various energy concerns and not always coinciding. On the one hand, we want to save energy and not always for ecological reasons – the cost of utility bills also carries its own weight. Furthermore, we access an ever larger number of consumer devices without which we would seemingly otherwise not exist: computers, machines for every possible purpose, mobile phones, iPads, iPods, photo and video cameras, etcetera. As if this dichotomy were not enough, many such devices are portable as everybody has some need to be in contact with everybody at whatever the time even …

Aráquide, caranga, carango, jiguba, jinguba, mandubi, mandobi, manobi, amendubi, amendo, mepinda, mancarra, manobi, mindubim and amendoim… lots of names for a nut that comes originally from South America and is cultivated by 45-year-old António Rosa in Maria Vinagre, a small village near Aljezur in the Southwest Alentejo and Vicentina Coast Natural Park. His four hectares of agricultural land are certified. There, in the sandy soil, he cultivates the peanuts or groundnuts, unique in Portugal and Europe. His agricultural product, known as Alcagoita, is processed into the finest peanut butter. The whole process, from cultivation to processing to selling of the …

Haven’t we got everything in Portugal that we need to live well? Good soil, enough water, lots of sunshine, and if you’ve got a good idea, meaningful work. It is harvest time again. The big fruits are hanging like heavy Easter eggs on the delicate trees in a one-hectare greenhouse in Fuseta, Olhão. Every year, 59-year-old José Lourenço, who was born in Mozambique, harvests around 20 tonnes of mangoes with names like Austin, Kate and Irwin. He supplies the Apolónia supermarkets in Almancil and Galé, as well as the Nosolo Italian ice cream parlours, Vila Vita and the local markets. …

Costa Vicentina is one of the few still wild and untamed Portuguese tourism zones. However, there has nevertheless been an exponential increase in tourist numbers in recent years. In order to bring about sustainable economic growth in the sector, Vicentina (1), in partnership with other regional associations, designed the ‘Nature Tourism Biennial’, held this year on September 26, 27 and 28 in the Aljezur multipurpose pavilion. According to the Vicentina Vice-President, Aura Fraga, “the event not only serves as a showcase of these tourism services to a mass public but also strives in parallel to demonstrate the potential of tourism …

To present the project for creating, developing and producing the eco-efficient window (EEW), ECO123 interviewed its creator, architect Miguel Veríssimo. ECO 123 – What led you to design this window?   Miguel Veríssimo – The EEW is a project dating from 2005/07. It arose from a practical need: a lack of eco-efficient building solutions on the market that could be mass produced, are easy to apply and are able to guarantee results when fitted in buildings. Once the idea was launched, I set up partnerships with the Physics and Technology of Buildings Laboratory at the University of Minho and with …

‘Art on Chairs’ is an international event staged by Paredes Municipal Council and provides a unique set of experiences in the furniture industry to young Portuguese designers selected from across the country. In this second edition, deliberately more daring than the first (1) held in 2012, the surprising results of the competition for ‘More Industry, More Design’ artistic residences led to an expansion in the number of companies taking part in the council with the new total of 14 demonstrating the great commitment of the sector. The event organisers received a total of over 50 candidates and having delegated the …

The researcher Paula Banza is studying the importance of moths in the burnt areas of the eastern Algarve in order to deepen the relationship between the pollinators and plants in the regeneration of the vegetation in the destroyed areas. Since the spring of 2013, the first following the fires, she has been capturing insects on a regular basis in three areas where there were fires and three that were unaffected, in order to analyse possible differences in their behavioural patterns. In a laboratory, they are subjected to a process that allows the grains of pollen they are carrying to be …

What you need to live is a good idea, a little bit of creativity together with an education, and a good helping of self-confidence. Take the same quantity of optimism, along with a sprinkling of realism. Don’t forget to shake well. Mix everything together well, examine it again in detail and critically, reflect on the whole thing and ask your friends for their advice and opinions. Then you’ll get quite a good product. A bit of start-up capital is also necessary, of course. You can get that from www.ppl.com.pt or ask Mum and Dad, your best friends or, when there’s …