Short Stories

Saturday, 8 th August 2020 Madam President of the EU Commission, Dr. Ursula von der Leyen. At the beginning of the week, journalists were presented with a press release with information relating to both Portugal and Europe, which contained such keywords as Green Deal, investments, sustainability, forest fires, reforestation, economics, ecology, eucalyptus, monocultures, cellulose and paper, among others.  An Investment Plan for Europe? I read in this press release that the European Investment Bank (EIB) will lend the Navigator Company SA (Setúbal) exactly 27.5 million euros for the purchase of a new paper machine (total cost 55 million euros), which …

Saturday, July the 25th, 2020 Local government is an art. It’s even a university discipline. But this does not guarantee that good political measures will be put in place. Basically, it’s not enough to have talent, you have to be honest and caring and have enough character to make sustainable decisions independently. Decisions that will be useful for the future of a village or a town. The art of politics bears fruit when it succeeds in increasing the wealth of a region. When a mayor cannot stand for re-election after three terms in office and is forced to retire, receiving …

Saturday, 18th July 2020 Lisbon. The “Natura 2000”  network was created by the EU Commission and aims to protect species and habitats of great importance in all 27 EU countries as a genuine form of nature conservation. There is a total of 2,000 species and 230 habitat types in the 27 countries between Finland and Portugal that have been designated as Natura 2000 sites. If you are interested and want to find the nearest nature reserve in your region, just click on https://natura2000.eea.europa.eu//# and enter your place of residence. Monchique is PTCON0037. The whole of the municipality has been designated …

Saturday, July 11th, 2020 The place at the top is called Bemparece (“Good-looking”) and the name does justice to the beautiful view that you can have from there. We climbed up to the plateau where Ana Mira (67) and Carlos Abafa (75) used to pick chanterelles in wet winters. We are surrounded by cork-oaks, most of which have been burned. The blue sky appears amid the treetops and, in front of us, we can see the mountains. Just a few years ago, everything was different. There were lots of chestnut-trees and cork-oaks here, more than a hundred years old, whose …

Saturday, July 4th, 2020 How do you produce a magazine and, at the same time, continue to reduce your CO2 emissions? This pandemic, which has caused us all to reflect upon our behaviour, our possessions, our work and our relationships with those we love, our friends, neighbours, clients and subscribers, has also enabled us to consider fresh perspectives and new opportunities. For the last six months, at ECO123, we have been engaged in an intense debate about new ways of presenting our articles in the future, contemplating forms that are immune to the virus and increasingly environmentally-friendly. In the last …

Saturday, 27 June 2020 Summer has begun in Portugal. Wolfgang, who has lived in his traditional house on the Costa Vicentina for 36 years, tells us that when he came here he had a plan. He came to live in Vila do Bispo in 1984, and his house was a ruin. He carefully renovated it, planted trees on the land and made a vegetable garden. That was a long time ago, but today he’s back where he started: the house is a ruin once again. Ashes and the smell of burning all around. Last Friday, his house burned down; only …

Saturday, June 20th, 2020 Do you still remember the first round-the-world flight of SOLARIMPULSE 2, the electric plane? In 2016, ECO123 wrote an exclusive report on this event. We interviewed the pilot after he had crossed the Atlantic, returned to Europe and landed in the Algarve. SOLARIMPULSE 2 covered 40,000 km and had permission to fly over densely-populated areas. The Swiss pilot duo, André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard, are down in history as pioneers of electric aviation. They took advantage of solar energy, flying the entirety of the journey without fossil fuels and, therefore, without generating emissions. SOLARIMPULSE 2 flew …

Saturday, June 13th, 2020 Well, I used to wear a woollen hat. It was one of those times when I became interested in science fiction. I thought it was cool. Every Saturday, I watched Star Trek on TV and, at some point, I felt it was time for a change. Through the power of my thoughts, I just said goodbye to my daily routine and beamed myself away. Scotty was my great role model. Beaming was a totally cool thing. You just didn’t want to be part of things anymore when it was getting boring, or when it was getting …

Saturday, June 6th, 2020 by Uwe Heitkamp Consider the following facts. Due to climate change, it has been raining less and less in the south of Portugal for a number of years, with insufficient rainfall to supply its ten million annual travellers. The current annual rainfall is between 350 and 400 mm. During the last three winters, it has rained so little that the water reservoirs, the seven dams of Odeleite, Beliche, Arade, Silves, Odelouca, Bravura and Santa Clara, are on average only 22 percent full. The dams protrude from the earth and the reservoirs are almost empty. Last October, …