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Saturday 2nd March 2024. Can you smell the money? My first forest fire arrived without any declaration of war, yet we are now engaged in a battle that has been going on for a lot longer than the war in Ukraine. It’s a climate war, which started on 11 September 2003 with a fire that blazed its way through Monchique to Silves and then came back, via Aljezur, right into the heart of the Odemira municipality, destroying over 40,000 hectares of forest before finally being extinguished only a week later. 400 km² multiplied by 20,000 tons of CO2 per km²! …

Saturday, 24th february 2024. In the light of current events, we’d like to postpone our story about the Navigator Company until next week and take the opportunity to ask what happens when a need is greater than the services on offer? What happens when an association looking after a town’s abandoned and sick animals, dogs and cats, providing them with food, shelter and medical attention, runs out of money, as the task is proving simply too big and the need far greater than can be remedied with the funds that the association has available? This situation leaves only two possibilities: …

Saturday, 17th february 2024. The European Investment Bank (ElB) is the European Union’s long-term lending institution, owned by its 27 Member States. It finances sound investments that contribute to EU policy objectives. EIB’s projects strengthen competitiveness, drive innovation, promote sustainable development, enhance social and territorial cohesion, and support a fair and swift transition to climate neutrality. ECO123 took a closer look at the bank’s activities. The EIB Group, which also includes the European Investment Fund (EIF), underwrote a total of €88 billion in new financing for over 900 projects in 2023. These commitments are expected to mobilise around €320 billion in investment, …

Saturday 10th February 2024. Portugal has 308 municipalities. One of these is Torres Vedras. Located 54 km north-west of Lisbon, it covers an area of 407 km². The medium-sized city, which is home to 83,072 people (2021 census) and spreads across 13 parishes, is governed by the Socialist Party and its mayor Laura Maria Jesus Rodrigues. Last week, on 31 January, the municipality’s Climate Action Plan was presented to the public at a well-attended event in the auditorium of the Environmental Education Centre. The city’s inhabitants now have the opportunity to comment on it publicly from 2 to 15 February. …

Saturday 3rd February 2024. The small publishing house “Haupt”, based in Bern, Switzerland, has published an interesting and important book. Telling the story of the spice trade over 5,000 years, it was written by Norwegian journalist Thomas Reinertsen Berg and translated from Norwegian into German. Why isn’t this book also available in Portuguese and English translations? And why does a Norwegian have to write a book about the history of spices when Portugal played such an important role in their trade, alongside the Netherlands, England, China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Sri Lanka? Wouldn’t this also have been a suitable topic …

Saturday 27th January 2024. Now, here for once we have not just talk – things are actually delivered. Last Monday, the new museum of Vila do Bispo was inaugurated by Mayor Rute Silva in the presence of the president of the Algarvian CCDR (Coordination and Development Commission) José Apolinário. The new Museum Vila do Bispo is called O Celeiro da História – The Barn of History – and is the result of the restoration of the former Celeiros de Vila do Bispo – EPAC. The formerly dilapidated building has been transformed into a public cultural centre. A public centre of …

Saturday 20th January 2023. Monchique, Portugal. According to the latest most recent census of 2021 there are still 5,462 residents living here. We’ve seen better times, when Monchique still boasted 14,779 residents. That was in 1960. At the time everybody was in work, meaningful, worthwhile work. This dictatorship thing wasn’t great, true, but at least you had your stock of medronho at home. Right? Exercising his profession, a shoemaker would earn what he needed to live. A farmer had his shoes made to measure at home by travelling shoemakers from Monchique. Monchique provided the potatoes, the bacon and the sweetcorn …

Saturday 6th January 2024. Bom dia to you in this New Year. Business as usual? Or can we look forward to something new after all? Well, on 10 March we will be electing a new government (in Portugal) – and between 6 and 9 June a new European Parliament.There will also be elections in Russia, as well as in the USA. The Donald Trump horror show shows no signs of abating. Some hold on to the belief that everything will remain the same. Others have not yet given up hope that something new, something better is just around the corner. Politics is …

Protecting existing forests and reforesting suitable areas could fix some 226 billion tons of carbon dioxide, representing an active contribution to climate protection. This is the conclusion reached by a 200-strong group of researchers headed by scientist Lidong Mo of ETH Zurich (Switzerland) in the renowned journal Nature. As long as forests remain intact, they are able to absorb carbon dioxide from the air and compensate greenhouse gas emissions. This is not about “planting trees on a massive scale”, emphasises ETH professor Thomas Crowther. Rather, this is about supporting communities and farmers on the ground, in order to increase biodiversity …