The owners of a private property in Mata do Ludo recently blocked access to a section of the Ecovia Litoral that connects the access road to Praia de Faro, in the curve area of the Airport of Faro, Quinta do Lago, and an area for public enjoyment installed by Turismo de Portugal in Mata do Ludo, in retaliation against the embargo, by the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF), of an illegal intervention in the middle of the Park Natural from Ria Formosa.
At stake is a vineyard that was improperly planted by the company Star Burst Investments, in a «partial protection zone», where «an intensification of production» is not allowed, therefore, the installation of an agricultural exploration of this nature, he explained to the Sul Informação Joaquim Castelão Rodrigues, ICNF regional director.
Now, 'if there is a breach of the embargo that was enacted, the process will be forwarded to the Public Prosecutor', with the company being able to incur fines and the possible obligation "to restore the original situation".
Following the embargo, net fences and private security guards were placed on the three accesses to the property in question, to prevent everyone from passing through.
The owners of the property also made a point of posting on the fence that they had raised copies of the ICNF letter, reporting the embargo on the installation of a vineyard without proper authorization and in a protected area.
Castelão Rodrigues insists, at this point, on ensuring that «the ICNF has no jurisdiction over the roads» and cannot intervene.
The situation, which took by surprise not only the thousands of people who enjoy this pedestrian and cycling section, but also the many nature and active tourism companies that operate in the Ludo area, is being strongly contested and has already led to several complaints from authorities with jurisdiction in the area.
One of the complaints was made by João Ministro, owner of ProActiveTur, who questioned the ICNF about the situation.
In its response, the ICNF clarified that Star Burst Investments submitted, on May 19, 2022, «a request for prior information for the development of a vineyard planting project», which «obtained an unfavorable opinion from this Regional Directorate».
«An existing building was also requested to recover, with an implantation area of 199,40 square meters, a claim that could be viable», added the entity.
In October 2022, and already after the huge fire that broke out in Mata do Ludo, in July of last year, and affected the property, the company pronounced «on the intention of rejecting the decision, requesting the reformulation of the decision in the sense favourable, with the final decision on the defendant having been upheld, in the sense of an unfavorable opinion».
Prior to that, on 17 August, «the same company came to request authorization to clean up the burnt area, following the fires that occurred in July 2022, on a property in Ludo», a claim to which a «favorable conditional opinion was given ».
At the same time, Star Burst Investments was informed «that due to the fact that interventions had been verified on the property prior to issuing an opinion, a legal assessment of the situation would be carried out, namely the possible existence of an infringement of the legal regime applicable to this protected area'.
Ao Sul Informação, Castelão Rodrigues assured that the ICNF was at the property in question, when this last opinion was requested, to assess the situation and gave indications to the owners about what «should be done» and what conditions they had to comply with.
Despite this and the warnings that had already been made by the ICNF, this entity, in inspection actions that it carried out «with a view to identifying new occurrences in the intervention zones» and «to verify potentially illegal situations», ended up detecting irregularities and raising three notices, which resulted in as many administrative offense proceedings.
And, since the company did not comply with «the final decision of rejection of the authorization request referring to the vineyard planting project at Herdade do Ludo, located inside the Ria Formosa Natural Park (PNRF), an order of embargo», and the company was notified of the decision on the 8th of June.
«This embargo order covers all land preparation and planting works, as well as attached or complementary works that are being carried out by the company itself and/or third parties in collaboration, in the location identified above, and the company must cease and/or cause the , immediately and by any means, all works, of any kind, that are being carried out in the said place, directly or indirectly related to the identified works», says the ICNF.
It was this situation that led the company that owned the land to seal the accesses a few days ago.
According to what our newspaper found out, despite the fact that it is legitimate for the owner of a land to block access and that it is demonstrably private property, in the case of the Ecovia Litoral section, the public enjoyment of this route is safeguarded by a contract signed between Sociedade Polis Ria Formosa and the previous owners of the land.
This contract, signed in 2015 in return for the public investment made in this path, is still in effect and will remain so for the next decade and a half.
With regard to the closure of the other access to the property, it blocked access to a picnic area and a car park that were also installed with public money, which support a much sought after birdwatching area.
As businessman João Ministro illustrates, this «is a place internationally recognized as a Birdwatching hotspot, and is even mentioned in guides, websites and materials from the Algarve Tourism Board».
The investments made in this area by Polis and Turismo de Portugal are what make this «a widely visited place, namely by companies like mine, which very regularly take clients there to watch birds».
In addition to João Ministro, there were several other businessmen who filed complaints with different authorities, due to this situation.
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