The Parliamentary Group Os Verdes wants to know if the Ministry of Economy is aware of the Sifucel company's intention to install a feldspar mine in the municipality of Monchique and is also aware of the environmental impact assessment study, which is being carried out at the Portuguese Environment Agency.
In a request for clarification to the Government delivered by deputy José Luís Ferreira in the Assembly of the Republic, the Greens also question whether, "if so, they are also aware of the entities that participated in it and what their positions are."
The Greens also want to know if the Ministry of Economy is considering "taking into account the positions taken by local entities in the decision to be taken, in response to the licensing or authorization for the exploration of feldspars in the Serra de Monchique".
In the request for clarification sent, the Greens recall the “deforestation intervention [by Sifucel] in the land located in Carapitotas, parish of Alferce, which was embargoed by CCDR Algarve, as it occurred in violation of the legal regimes of the National Ecological Reserve and the Network Natura 2000', such as the Sul Informação reported.
The same company initiated an Environmental Impact Assessment process with the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), whose public consultation ended on May 17, 2017.
The Greens emphasize that “local mayors and various environmental associations, from the outset, were against new requests for mineral extraction in the Serra de Monchique, considering that the impacts caused will be quite negative, not only from an environmental point of view but also economic, since there has been a strong commitment to nature tourism in the region».
The decisions of the Municipal Assembly of Monchique, on March 17th, against the intentions of the company Felmica, which also made a request for prospecting and research of feldspar, and on the 8th of May, are also remembered by the Greens. , within the scope of the public consultation process for the environmental impact assessment study of the company SIFUCEL.
«Alferce Parish Assembly also unanimously decided to be against prospecting in its territory, on March 16, 2017, considering that the values of the Natura 2000 Network, the Monchique Special Protection Zone and the Network are not safeguarded National Ecological, nor the protection of aquifers for public supply, with possible consequences on the basin of the Odelouca dam», add the Greens.
The ecological party also recalls that there are already in the council «three licensed quarries in operation for over 40 years, which have never met the legal requirements for mitigating negative impacts, so that territory and its populations have not been properly protected in their law to a human, healthy and ecologically balanced living environment, as enshrined in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic».
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