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Eco123 Revista da Economia e Ecologia
Saturday, 31th august 2024.
“We don’t want another Miami here,” says local resident Vítor Lopes (43), from Caramujeira near Lagoa. “Don’t we already have enough tourism?”
ECO123 talked to Vítor Lopes (43) and Luís Lopes (64), his father, at a meeting in Lagoa. ECO123 had asked its readers three questions about the proposed building of a hotel on a nature reserve: Firstly, which nature reserve? Secondly, which district of the Algarve are we talking about? Thirdly, which banks are involved in the financing?
Vítor Lopes (43) was the first to send the right answers to the questions. And then he wrote the following sentence: “For me, it’s the ultimate paradise, lost by the sea, in a crowded and increasingly commercialised Algarve. Where is the water supposed to come from? We are currently experiencing a water emergency here, and then a mega-million hotel project is to be built in the middle of the nature reserve and we are being expropriated, the access roads widened and the plots of land we own are being reduced in size…”
The correct answers were: “Câmara Municipal de Lagoa, Reserva da Pedra do Valado and a recently created banking organisation resulting from the famous BES case, in which Filipe Vieira and Isabel dos Santos practised their criminal nepotism, causing the hole in the balance sheet to be blown wide open. Now, on the other side of Albandeira, the Millennium Bank is also supporting the building project through the Predimed Fund.
“A total of 118 people registered to attend the public consultation on the building project. Lagoa Town Council could have done more if the computer system hadn’t broken down. Or if Lagoa hadn’t scheduled the meeting during the period when the courts are on holiday. For many, of course, it’s the big summer holiday.”
When Vítor Lopes (43) tells the story of his youth, during the early days of Portugal’s democratic re-awakening following the revolution of 25 April 1974, everything is almost always related to corruption and cronyism. Some people are just more equal than others. “We were born and grew up here. For example, if we apply to build an extension to our house because a child has been born into this world and we need an extra room, we won’t get permission because it’s a nature reserve.”
However, when the national footballer LUÍS FIGO applied for a permit to build his hotel VILA ALBA in the nature reserve, this exemption was of course granted, even though construction had not been permitted for many years on the cliff directly above the Praia de Albandeira to the east of Carvoeiro. But the resort was built. Then LUÍS FIGO simply resold the finished resort. “What are the laws worth if there are double standards?” asks Vítor Lopes. “And now two banks have come along with old building permits from 2008, and they can smell a huge windfall… We want to put a stop to this property speculation in Lagoa-Carvoeiro!”
ECO123 wonders what the current mayor of Lagoa, Luís António Alves Encarnação (54) from the Socialist Party, might have to say about this? While I was preparing for a press meeting, I researched a few more facts about the politician’s CV. But then I decided not to interview him because I found out that the mayor of Lagoa has a conflict of interest with regard to the construction project. From 2007 to 2013, he himself was a manager at the BES bank that intended to build the hotel. The mayor, Luís António Alves Encarnação, cannot possibly be in a position today to provide a free and independent opinion as a politician and should not be given the opportunity to make decisions on the property development planned for the Albandeira nature reserve, which he then justifies in public. Instead, should he not suspend his political involvement in this case?
If the head of a municipal council cannot make a fair and independent decision as to whether a nature reserve can remain a nature reserve, why do we have to sit through the spectacle and the charade of public participation?
