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Interviews

There’s no planet B

How did your interest in the environment begin? I started by being interested in the consumer society which was starting to emerge in Portugal in the mid-1980s. I started to work for Expresso and it had a section called Bolsa do Consumidor (Consumers’ Corner). We were in a closed society, a very restricted market, and, with the pre-accession to the European Union, we joined the market economy train and there was a boom of consumerism that was completely unprecedented and brutal, with no environmental legislation at that time. We ended up creating huge externalities and many negative impacts from the …

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How do we want to live?

How do we want to live?

  Where did the inspiration for the
Boom Festival come from? From my youth in Goa in India, where I grew up. Goa was an international meeting point for Asia travellers and hippies, a melting pot for young people from many countries. There was a lot of music. Even in the 1970s, there was a big party on the beach at every full moon, with rock bands playing live. In the 1980s, travellers from Australia, Japan, Europe and America brought the latest avant-garde music with them from their own countries. They gave it to the people now known as DJs. They …

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happiness

“If we listen carefully, happiness can be everywhere”

You’ve travelled the world. Why did you choose to live in the Algarve? I arrived in Monchique after spending 15 years travelling with a backpack. Throughout my travels, I only ever bought a single ticket, but that changed when I arrived in the Algarve (laughs). I was with someone who lived in Monchique and I ended up staying. The same year, I started doing sand sculptures in countries like Belgium and Spain, and also in Albufeira. It was 1998 and I thought of staying because I liked, and still like, Portugal. Five years later, I started the FIESA project. Tell …

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zero waste

Zero waste?

Can you tell us a story from your childhood? I was born and lived on a farm in Maia, an area close to Porto. We had a manure heap that we used to fertilise the land. We didn’t use a lot of packaging, we drank water from the well. We’re talking about 40 years ago. My grandfather made his own wine and bottled it. The bottles and flagons were recycled and refilled. There wasn’t the same amount of waste that we see nowadays. If you bought some shoes in a box, the box was used to keep something in. The …

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Reuse, reduce and recycle

ECO123: Is it difficult to live in Monchique or is it easy? Jeremy: It is easier than it used to be. We were the first foreigners to arrive here. The reception of foreigners is much better than it used to be. Economically it is more difficult nowadays. It means that basically today you have to spend more time working as a percentage of your general time than before. I do gardening and computer work. I first studied electronics in Portimão and then I did a professional course in Faro. When I was younger, electronics was my interest. My father was …

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Nazaré Cabral

Rethinking the whole social security system

As a lecturer and researcher at the Centro de Investigação de Direito Económico, Financeiro e Fiscal (Research Centre on Economic, Financial and Fiscal Law) of the Faculty of Law in Lisbon, Nazaré Cabral has worked for two decades in areas such as Social Security, Public Finance and Economic and Monetary Union. She has written a large number of works in these areas since 200 and a member of the Scientific Committee of the 17th BIEN Congress. She regards the UBI as an “appealing measure”, but is hesitant about its implementation, saying that it is necessary to weigh up the “implications …

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Francisco Guerreiro

Man is born to create …

The party Pessoas Animais e Natureza (People, Animals and Nature – PAN) was the only one to include the Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) in its manifesto and it raised the issue for discussion in the Assembleia da República. Francisco Guerreiro, the national political commissioner of PAN, believes that the UBI has the basis to respond to a new economic model. Still without having defined a project for its implementation, this party has promoted parliamentary debate about the issue. ECO123: Is the UBI a key policy for PAN at present? F.G.: It is a debate that needs to be had in …

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Don’t talk, act!

Eric Castaldo is the architect of the planned project to build a cable car from Monchique to the 776-metre-high peak of Picota in the range of the same name. He has been living in Portugal for 44 years. He is French by birth and his wife is Portuguese. They have two children. He has had his own office in the village since 2000. This is where he does the architectural work that has made his name outside the country. His most important clients are Pestana, Oceânico and Vale do Lobo. ECO123 talked to him in his studio. Is it a …

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Our aim is to transform the ruins

Monchique is one of the municipalities in the country that has suffered most from depopulation and, in the last 40 years, its population has fallen by half, to around 5,000 at present. To reverse the trend towards depopulation and ensure the town’s sustainability in the coming decades, this Algarve municipality is focusing on incentives to retain and increase the local population, with support for the construction and reconstruction of buildings, exemption from municipal taxes and tariffs, and complimentary projects and technical support for people wishing to settle in the municipality, along with other initiatives. But will these measures be sufficient …

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Investing in the energy efficiency of residential properties

and decarbonising transport 2016 was the hottest year since records started being kept of the planet’s temperature in the nineteenth century. Governments now seem to be facing the problem head on at an international level, and, following the agreements established in COP 21, COP 22 in Marrakesh has accelerated the implementation of those processes by the countries involved. José Mendes, State Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, told ECO 123 what is being done in Portugal, and in different parts of the world, in an attempt to slow down global warming. In addition to electrifying the transport system, producing …

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