Natural sanctuary is under threat

PortimÃo and Lagos councils have called for real estate development in the area to be checked and the protected area status of the Ria de Alvor estuary reinforced. The call came in an official letter from the permanent committee of the two municipal councils, who fear the growing threat of real estate development in the area. The document was sent to Portimão Câmara, the Comissão de Coordenação e Desenvolvimento Regional do Algarve (CCDR), the regional territory planning authority, the Instituto de Conservação da Natureza e da Biodiversidade (ICNB), which is the national authority on environmental issues, and the Instituto Portuário e de Transportes Marítimos (IPTM), the national authority on ports and maritime infrastructures. Filipe de Abreu, president of the permanent committee, told The Resident that the purpose of the alert is to “remind authorities that the country’s regulation on protected areas must also be respected in the Ria de Alvor” and that the committee’s aim is to ensure that “no one is forgetting that”. The area is already under the special protection of Rede Ecológica Nacional (REN), the country’s ecological network of protected areas, the Rede Agrícola Nacional (RAN), the Portuguese network of protected agricultural areas, the Natura 2000, a special law created in 2000 establishing protected natural areas and of the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty signed in Iran in 1971, that ensures the conservation and the wise use of the wetlands in the world. Of the 12 Ramsar locations officially existing in Portugal, two are in the Algarve, one being the Ria de Alvor and the other the Ria Formosa, near Faro.

 

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