The Almargem Association wants the Loulé Council to proceed, «immediately, with the process of classifying the Trafal and Foz do Almargem area as a local protected area» to ensure that the real estate project planned for these «two notable wetlands of the Quarteira's coast” does not advance.
The Algarve environmental association has taken a public position in relation to the Quinta do Oceano project, whose Environmental Impact Study (EIA) is in public consultation until today, Thursday, the 14th of June.
For Almargem, «another serious environmental attack is on the verge of being committed in the municipality of Loulé». «The tourist development in question, now called Quinta do Oceano, will occupy an area of 9,7 hectares, where it is intended to build 499 houses, located in buildings of 2 or 6 floors, including an aparthotel, and housing a total of 1831 inhabitants ».
If built, this new urban center will “mark very negatively the entire future landscape of the site, in addition to promoting a significant increase in noise pollution, car traffic and access by passers-by, in an area where the preservation of nature should be the top priority'.
This wetland was one of those that was in the spotlight of the Environmental Education Network for Ecosystem Services (REASE), an environmental education project coordinated by Almargem and which involved several entities in the Algarve, including the CCMAR of the University of Algarve, the Ciência Viva de Faro and Tavira and Algarve schools.
Within the scope of Rease, in addition to having been promoted a walk through Trafal and Foz do Almargem, to make known the environmental wealth of this area, was launched a publication about Cadoiço and Foz do Almargem.
Thus, Almargem is «obviously, against the progress of this project and defends the lead of this Environmental Impact Study». But, «taking into account the legal framework in question, the result of the indifference of successive municipal executives, there is the hypothesis that this will not happen».
“In this case, there is only one thing the current municipal executive can do to compensate for the mistake of having let the situation up to this point: start, immediately, with the process of classifying the Trafal and Foz do Almargem area as protected area at a local level, guaranteeing in a more effective and decisive way the conservation and sustainable management of these wetlands», considers the Algarve environmental association.
The possibility of advancing to this classification is not new. “In 2011, the Municipal Assembly of Loulé even approved a proposal for a recommendation with the objective of classifying Foz do Almargem as a “protected area of a local scope”, a process that never made any progress”.
This year, Algarve deputies from the PS Parliamentary Group presented at the Assembly of the Republic a draft resolution aimed at the preservation of some wetlands in the Algarve, including Trafal and Foz do Almargem, a proposal applauded by the Algarve environmental association, but about which «the current municipal executive never spoke clearly».
Before, in 2009, «at a round table promoted by Associação Almargem, the representative of the owners of most of the land surrounding Lagoa do Almargem presented a proposal to transfer these lands in exchange for the possibility of a license to develop other spaces. refused by the Municipality'.
And, despite the fact that in recent years, some suggestions have been made «in order to significantly change the classification of these lands under the PDM, seeking to minimize the inevitable advance of the urbanization process», the various municipal executives «have done nothing in this sense".
«The situation has now worsened with the conclusion of a regrettable process concerning the area of the current Camping Park of Quarteira, provided since 1995 when the PDM of Loulé was approved. In 2008, the land in the park was sold by Orbitur to Invesfundo VII (a real estate fund then linked to the Espírito Santo Group and currently held by Novo Banco), which, in 2011, submitted a licensing request for the subdivision of these lands that in the PDM of Loulé had unfortunately been classified as an “urban space”, the association guaranteed.
Thus, at the end of 2017, Invesfundo VII delivered "a final licensing request, in which, cunningly, numbers were presented slightly lower than the minimum limits required for the mandatory execution of an environmental impact assessment".
Despite this, «the Municipality of Loulé, in agreement with the CCDR-Algarve, decided to demand the submission of an EIA», whose public consultation ends today.
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