Despite opposition and widespread protests from many sectors of society, the eco-vandalism at Lagos' Dona Ana beach by the Ministry of the Environment is nearly complete.
In addition to the dredging and discharge of 140,000 cubic metres of sand sucked from the nearby underwater ecosystem, the infill to make the beach bigger for tourists will be finished off by a 50 metre long bank for which no environmental impact assessment has been made.
The lack of an impact assessment deliberately flouts one of the few envirionmental safeguards the country has against this type of state sponsored act.
According to the environmental organisation Almargem, this serious and premeditated environmental crime cannot go unpunished and it plans to send a complaint against the Portuguese state to the European Commission, as well as submitting a criminal complaint against the Ministry of Environment to the state prosecutor.
The €1.8 million project is due to be completed at the end of this week and the machinery removed from a beach which bears no resemblance at all to the one cherished and loved by generations of holdaymakers and locals alike.
The project is over a decade late, it was meant to happen in 1999 as part of the Coastal Zone Management Plan (POOC) Vilamoura/Burgau, but started in April this year as the Minister, Jorge Moreira da Silva, decided to activate old projects that most thought had been forgotten about and even fewer wanted to see put into action due to the dramatic visual affect at well known and perfectly functional beaches.
This is the same minister than thinks it entirely justifiable to evict Ria Formosa islanders and destroy their home in his €17 million island clearance project, currently on hold due to environmental concerns over habitat for a protected species, the island chameleon.
At issue, say Almargem, are clear violations by Jorge Moreira da Silva of the principles and rules contained in both Portuguese and Community legislation and it seems the minister again has ignored the rules that his department and everyone else must abide by.
"The work at Dona Ana Beach, Lagos, should be preceded by a full environmental impact assessment for the construction of the 50 metre long bank.
"The work at Dona Ana beach violates the principle of prevention enshrined in the constitution as a natural area that was to become a protected zone has been radically altered," state the envrionmentalists in a justifiable series of observations.
Almargem also is annoyed that at the start of the season the Blue Flag organisation and Quercus awarded the beach a Blue Flag and Golden Quality assessment when in fact one of the most beautiful beaches in the world was being subject to an environmental crime in the name of ‘health and safety.’
Portugal’s Environmental Agency claims that the work is essential so as to keep sun-worshippers safe but locals claim the imperative was simply to dump sand, 140,000 m2 of it, so that more people could lie in the sun but at the cost to the marine ecosystem and the destruction of a beach internationally recognised for its beauty.
The degeneration of an area that includes a bird fauna protection programme, "is a serious and premeditated environmental crime can not go unpunished."
Almargem is not the only organisation to complain but as ever in these situations, the government agencies continue with expensive projects that few agree with and let the courts debate the facts at a later date when the destruction is complete and Jorge Moreira da Silva has moved onto the next act of environmental vandalism on his agenda.
As one local fisherman obseved, "This work is just meddling with nature. One good storm and the sand could all be gone and they will have to start all over again, I can think of better ways of spending nearly two million euros."
