The Movement Save Alagoas Brancas and several Portuguese NGOs will meet this Monday, August 28, with Duarte Cordeiro, Minister of Environment and Climate Action.
In a note, the movement stresses that it is heading to Lisbon with the aim of making the minister take a stand in order to change the allotment of the site.
A petition “Save the wetland of Alagoas Brancas” it already has more than 7600 signatures and will soon be introduced in the Assembly of the Republic to be discussed in plenary.
In a note, the Movement reinforces that "a rare community of plants associated with aquatic environments was recently found in Alagoas Brancas, with several rare and endangered species".
“It is the largest national population of damasonium bourgaei, a critically endangered species in Portugal, only known in two other places (in one place there is an isolated plant and in another place there are a few dozen individuals). In addition to this, other rare plants were also recorded, such as cressa cretica e Elatine macropod and other species, such as Sporobulos aculeatus, which attest to the good state of conservation of the community».
According to the Movement, “the recent discoveries and the latest opinions and technical studies carried out on the site have contradicted the position of those who for too long tried to devalue the ecological and environmental importance of Alagoas Brancas”.
One of the suggested ideas has been to relocate wild animals and build an artificial wetland habitat, changing the location of the Alagoas Brancas wetland.
«This is an idea that the citizens' movement solemnly contests and that it points out as being a non-solution, neither in the short nor in the long term, much less in the climatic situation in which we find ourselves and much less in the case of a wetland of fresh water with the characteristics and services of Alagoas Brancas», they emphasize.
«How many years does it take to recreate the necessary conditions for the sustainable functioning of the trophic chains present there? What are the animals that live there doing in the meantime? Where are the thousands of birds that roost in the trees of Alagoas Brancas going to live?”, are some of the questions raised by the Movement.
About two months ago, Luís Encarnação, mayor of Lagoa, informed that he would change the site if the government supported it and the promoter accepted it.
According to the Movement, recently, the mayor contacted one of its members, informing that he would have signaled land for that purpose and that he would also have already spoken with the promoter in that sense, promising to schedule a new meeting with the movement after FATACIL, where the group has marked presence.
As White Alagoas are a small freshwater wetland within an alluvial aquifer which, throughout the year, is home to 300 registered species of fauna and flora, including 146 species of avifauna.
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