Loulé Court has upheld the suspension of the planned demolition of 41 primary residences on Farol island, part of the Ria Formosa island chain south of Faro and Olhão in the Algarve.
In April 2015 the same court decided to suspend the demolition orders for 137 threatened island homes whose owners had filed injunctions in response to formal letters from the Polis Ria Formosa Society which informed homeowners that they were to lose their property without compensation.
The president of the 'Associação da Ilha do Farol de Santa Maria,' Feliciano Júlio explained to local news service Região Sul today that of the 55 primary residences on the island, there are only six houses left without legal protection but those are properties where the owners have yet to receive formal notification of demolition.
"There are eight homes, four of which are first homes, for which the owners have not filed a court injunctions because the Polis Society so far has not made the final decision and has not sent them a letter,” said Júlio.
Polis, a company that formally is to be wound up on December 31, 2015, has challenged the court decision but is in such a legal, moral and organisational mess that it is unlikely to complete its social engineering programme before the year end.
In May, the Loulé court accepted an injunction submitted by António Pina, the mayor of Olhão, that sought the suspension of further demolitions on the islands as the islands provided a habitat for a rare chameleon.
The court agreed that the chameleon was just what was needed to stop the idiocy of the Polis contractors destroying perfectly serviceable homes and consigning families to a life on the mainland in council housing that does not exist.
Polis spent more public money challenging the injunction, claiming that as Pina runs Olhão council and the islands in question come under Faro council, the injunction is invalid.
Pina had realised that Faro’s Rogério Bacalhau was unlikely to stick up for his island constituents as he already had been bought off on the cheap by the government with the promise of some dredging, which was going to happen anyway.
The Associação da Ilha do Farol decided to present its own injunction based on the chameleon just to be on the safe side and it is this injunction that has been accepted by the court.
If the government changes after the October 4th elections the islanders are "open to dialogue" and hope to put an end to the threat that still hangs over their heads. They want proper registration for their homes and acceptance of their unique way of life which, several generations later, remains harmonious, eco-friendly, welcoming and an essential part of the tourism appeal of the Ria Formosa Islands.
The current government has failed to engage and through the Ministry and Minister of the Environment has acted with scant regard for those people its planned actions directly affect.
Feliciano Júlio believes that the Polis Society, the strong arm bully boys of the Ministry of the Environment, now has no time for carrying out the demolitions even if the court decisions went in its favour.
While there is no definitive judicial decision on the islanders’ fate, Feliciano promises to not give up and says he is determined that the whole mess is followed through to its logical conclusion, even if this case ends up in the European courts.
The Minister for the Environment, the 44-year-old Jorge Moreira da Silva, has pushed ahead with the ‘renaturisation’ of the Ria Formosa islands using the Polis programme which seeks still to demolish a total of 800 houses on the islands.
Moreia da Silva’s argument that the islands are ’for everyone to enjoy’ was one of more laughably obtuse justifications used to evict hundreds of fishing families to a life on state handouts on the mainland.
Once the inconvenient houses and fishing communities have been disbanded, the much denied government plan is to allocate blocs of land for ‘eco-tourism’ projects. The islanders and their self contained way of life then will be gone forever.
Polis, led by Sebastião Teixeira, has failed yet its leader has been rewarded for his failure by being appointed the Regional Director of the Environment Agency.
Despite Polis' remit outlining its requirement to work with island communities and develop their artisan economies, Teixeira's actions have been described as high-handed, arrogant, uncaring, bullying, threatening and certainly taking no account of the interests of the inhabitants of these island where nobody was interested in living until the real estate came under the spotlight of big money tourism developers, for this is what lies behind the whole charade.
When the Polis accounts are wound up at the end of 2015, the final report will make interesting reading as the society's financial reporting to date has been slow even by Portuguese standards.
There is a growing suspicion that all aspects of its operation may not be have accounted for with the rigorous accuracy demanded of a body funded by the EC, national and local government.
Local blog Olhao Livre’ outlines the political background to the destruction of the Ria Formosa’s traditional industries, the main points are as follows:
“The major problems affecting the Ria Formosa and its inhabitants are pollution, licenses for shellfish nurseries, coastal erosion, traditional economic activities and demolitions.
Pollution in the Ria Formosa has been ignored by all public bodies which have refused to recognise its impact on traditional economic activities.
According to studies by IPMA, if the Ria Formosa waters returned to the ecological quality that is needed in an area considered for shellfish production, it is possible to achieve 4kg of shellfish per square meter. The production area is 4,500,000 m2 so there is a potential economic value of enormous magnitude which could yield a per head income for the people of Olhão of €4,000 annually just from clams.
Year after year we have seen many producers go out of business because of the pollution that kills the clams and removes their income.
In 2007 legislation was drafted to grant permits for these shellfish nurseries which would be obtained at an auction for the highest price. This competition was postpooned in the 2007 election eyar and has yet to happen.
In the area of Polis combating or minimising coastal erosion, little or nothing has been done despite the ongoing works. There has recently been some dredging inside the Ria Formosa area to allow navigability and dredged sand, some of it contaminated, has been used to build up bathing areas, which is hardly the same as ‘protection of the dunes.’ This exercise has been nothing to do with addressing coastal erosion.
The planned demolitions are included in the development plans of the Natural Park of Ria Formosa and coastlines and are a prelude to high class tourist development.
If the government gets its way the people will be expelled from the Ria Formosa islands, then the pollution will be dealt with and the coastal erosion plan properly carried out as the mantra of ‘sustainable tourism’ is used to build tourism projects."
