What does ECO mean to Frankie Chavez?

I identify this word, first of all, with ecology. I have two children and I am often worried about what they will have when they are 36. It also means recycling and the fight against pollution. As artists, we play instruments, and when we buy new ones, or at concerts, we don’t think about recycling what we have got.

Obviously, the economy plays a part. We need to live. But I think that the economy should combine with ecology. Both can be combined, in a local approach: using alternative energies, living in a more sustainable way. Companies nowadays are starting to think locally again. But combining the two things will still be very complicated.

I live in the city, but I sometimes like to get out of it and go to places like Aljezur and Monchique, with views over the sea and the hills of the serra. I talk to people with an ECO vision there. In the city, people lose contact with nature and with the local economy. I think we also need to be less city-focused and selfish. We are healthy when we achieve a balance.

I will be back in Monchique with my children at the end of the year, after the first rains, to plant cork oaks and walnut trees with ECO123.