The ruins of Balsa, once one of the largest Roman cities of the Iberian Peninsula, are threatened with destruction by the installation of greenhouses and irrigation systems.
The director of the Ria Formosa Natural Park, Valentina Calixto, has said a Spanish-owned fruit-growing business can go ahead with its plans, thus putting at risk an invaluable trove of Roman archaeological remains in the Tavira council area..
The Spanish company, Surexport, leased the land at Quinta da Torre d'Aires, a 43-hectare property located near Luz de Tavira, under which lie Roman remains of enormous archaeological significance.
Only 14.8 hectares of the farm have been designated as National Ecological Reserve (REN) despite being in the Ria Formosa protected area.
In September 2015, destruction started with major earthworks carried out on the 14.8 hectares of REN land and at other areas on the farm, with the installation of metal greenhouse supports, their foundations and the installation of irrigation.
It was a complaint from a local expat resident in Tavira which resulted in the regional development board, the CCDR-Algarve, stopping any further development on the REN part of the site.
The Spanish company had failed to apply for permission from the various bodies with responsibility for this protected area with the manager, Ignacio Márquez, weakly offering the excuse that no one informed the company that the project had to be approved by more than one entity.
In October last year, the GNR made an inspection of the site and logged an official report citing an administrative offence as building had been carried out on protected REN land.
At the end of October, 2015, David Santos at the CCDR-Algarve gave the order to cease all work at the 14.8 hectares of ecological land, "given the ecological sensitivity of the area and to comply with the 'principle of prevention and precaution.'"
Santos gave the Spaniards 30 days to return the land to its original state and to remove the illegally erected structures.
The Spaniards must have appealed the CCDR-Algarve decision as the director of the Ria Formosa Natural park, Valentina Calixto, has just given the go-ahead to Surexport which now can go ahead with the installation of greenhouses and irrigation systems in one of Portugal's Natural Parks - where greenhouses may not be erected.
The Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Biodiversity and the increasingly feeble Environment Minister, João Pedro Fernandes, have said nothing and are condoning a needless act of vandalism.
Local blog Olhão Livre also questions the Ministry of Culture which, by failing to oppose the works, has exposed to risk one of the largest Roman cities of the Iberian Peninsula.
"A population that does not respect its past and its history is a population without a future!" cries the local activist blog which has a long history of exposing council double-dealings and state-sponsored corruption.
The questions are simple: is the cultivation of raspberries in a prohibited area more important than the environmental protection and preservation of Portugal's heritage, and, who is Valentina Calixto that she is able to decide on behalf of the Portuguese nation that irreplaceable Roman ruins are just an inconvenience to Surexport?
The Olhao Livre blog pulls no punches when describing Calixto as a former manager of the Hydrographic Board for the Algarve (ARH) whose ineptitude appears to be legendary: " in her dual role of president of the ARH and President of the Polis Ria Formosa Society, she showed all her hatred against the residents of the barrier islands..."
As for the Roman remains, the landowner has never allowed archaeological surveys to take place and now that he has leased the farm to the Spanish, he is likely to care even less for the nation’s cultural heritage lying below his soil.
Balsa was the most important Roman city in the south of the Iberian peninsular and was rediscovered in 1866 with significant work carried out in the 1970s showing the port to have been larger than Lisbon at that time.
