Short Stories

Saturday 27th July 2024. A pocketknife can be a friendly companion in the forest of Monchique. Monchique is a village in the mountain range of the same name in south-west Portugal, at the beginning or end of Europe – it all depends on which way you look at it. Portugal, and the Monchique Mountains in particular, are known for their cork-oak and chestnut forests. Generally speaking, that was still the case only a generation or so ago, in 1990. Then along came the paper industry and the private owners of these forests began to cut down their forests and plant …

Saturday 20th July 2024. Do you have to love nature to be able to protect it? Or is it enough simply to calculate the value of a forest in economic terms? The attitude that people have towards the forest, towards invasive tree species and the risk of forest fires arising from the large-scale cultivation of eucalyptus, explains the ethical rationale behind the creation of the institution responsible for nature conservation in Portugal: the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas – ICNF). Only two percent of the forested land in Portugal belongs to …

Saturday, the 13th of July 2024. It’s obvious that the Algarve and its inhabitants are faced with a serious problem. Until now, everyone had assumed that the supply of water available on our planet was unlimited. Now, however, this misconception that all resources are unlimited for all sectors of the economy is being shattered. So, the solution that is being proposed is to desalinise sea water. Aren’t there any other solutions? A desalination plant must be regarded as a last resort. The Algarve is going through difficult times. The legal battle being waged by more than 20 environmental and professional …

Saturday 6th July 2024. There are no limits to the imagination, are there? I can just envisage the first major European tour operator cancelling all trips to Portugal this year, showing the government that the tourist industry acts responsibly and takes care of its customers – especially in the event of illness. I no longer recommend travelling to Portugal, especially to the Algarve. This is because the government – no matter whether it is socialist or conservative – has run Portugal’s healthcare system into the ground, to such an extent that people no longer dare to become ill. If you …

Saturday 22 June 2024. Continuation of last week’s interview: Eco123: There are still people who don’t care about their ecological footprint. LR: People who really don’t care at all… Eco123: They’re going to eat meat seven days a week, drive diesel cars, fly to Brazil on holiday… and they don’t want to plant trees. What do you do with the opponents who reject your climate plan? LR: Our investment in young people is very important. And there are many thousands of them who are impacted year after year by our work at the Environmental Education Centre and in schools. We …

Saturday, 15th june 2024. Portugal has 308 municipalities. One of them is the medium-sized city of Torres Vedras, located 54 kilometres to the north-west of Lisbon and covering an area of 407 km². This inland municipality has 83,072 inhabitants (Census 2021) and spreads over 13 parishes. The municipal council is led by the Socialist Party and its mayor is Laura Maria Jesus Rodrigues (63). At the beginning of the year, the municipality’s Climate Action Plan was presented to the public at a well-attended meeting in the auditorium of the Environmental Education Centre. The local inhabitants were then given the opportunity …

Saturday 8th june 2024. The Portuguese Society for the Study of Birds (SPEA) is pleased to announce that Rui Borralho was appointed as Executive Director in May. Replacing the outgoing Executive Director, Domingos Leitão, Rui Borralho has enjoyed a solid career and nurtures a fervent passion for nature conservation, bringing with him more than 30 years of experience and a deep dedication to wildlife. With a PhD in Forestry Engineering, specialising in Wildlife Management, from the University of Lisbon’s Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Rui Borralho has always been passionate about nature. ‘It’s a huge responsibility and challenge, and I’m very …

Saturday, 1st june 2024. I got to know Luis Vicente* when he visited me half an eternity ago at the Rotarians in Almancil. It was he who came up with the idea of the theatre bus. ACTA – A Companhia de Teatro do Algarve* – had been given a double-decker bus (VATe), whose MOT had expired, and which was in urgent need of repair. He showed me the vehicle at a garage in Olhão: it had been completely stripped down and was standing on the platform lift; it required a lot of welding work and its load-bearing parts needed to …

Saturday, 25th may 2024. Living, as we are now, in the heat of the climate crisis, when the forest in Portugal is on fire, we know exactly what we have to do to put it out. We call the fire department, and we quickly roll out our own hoses. It’s all quite clear, isn’t it? We don’t wait until 2035 or even longer. We don’t wait to put out the fire. Why is it taking so long to implement the transformation in the energy sector? Solar and wind energy have been around for a long time now, hydroelectricity for centuries. …

Saturday 18th May 2024. The CO2 observatory in space has been in operation since 2023, because what can be measured can be reduced. Until recently, it was always claimed that CO2 could not be seen, smelled, tasted, heard or even touched. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in the USA has the largest collection of geoscientists on the planet. Their mission is to visualise CO2 and function as a key trusted source of comprehensive environmental information about both the current state and the future of the Earth. NASA scientists design, build, launch and operate missions, including satellites, to understand how our …