Faro council has voted through a motion, "No to the demolitions, yes to the requalification" of the Ria Formosa, proposed by a CDU (Democratic union) councillor who submitted a document that demanded the recognition of the social, economic, historical and cultural value of the villages on the Ria Formosa islands and an end to the demolitions.

The motion was only just approved as the PSD (Social Democrats) and Socialist Pary concillors voted against the motion and hence, in favour of the continuing demolitions and misery for those islanders affected.

António Pina, the mayor of Olhão and champion of the Ria Formosa islanders’ struggle for fair play and recognition, was in court on Monday, defending his petition that island property demolitions should be halted due to the presence of a rare island chameleon.

Pina took the opportunity of further trashing the reputation of Sebastião Teixeira, the former president of Polis Litoral Ria Formosa, by stating that all Teixeira has been interested in was demolishing island homes.

João Matos Fernandes, Portugal’s Environment Minister, tried in vain to convince MPs at a Committee on Environment, Spatial Planning and Local Government hearing today, that he knew what he was doing.

The subject under discussion was the recent flurry of demolition notices sent to householders on the Ria Formosa islands, 60 letters in total, demanding that islanders vacate their properties prior to their buildings being knocked down.

The Algarve’s Ria Formosa islanders yet again have started to receive eviction and demolition notices from the Polis Litoral Ria Formosa society as if the struggles and progress made in the last year have been erased from the memory of the Environment Minister, João Pedro Matos Fernandes.

Fifty households in the villages of Hangares and Farol have received letters even though parliament has agreed that home owners can stay put in their island properties until a plan agreed by all parties is agreed on.

Portugal’s MPs have recommended to the Government that unregistered settlements on the Algarve’s Ria Formosa islands formally should be recognised.

Published yesterday in the Diário da República, this recommendation is a monumental shift in the previous official attitude to the islands' inhabitants and their property rights, or lack of.

António Pina, the mayor of Olhão, who has done more than any other public figure to fight the Ria Formosa island demolitions, is to join the board of Polis Litoral Ria Formosa in a dramatic move that has detractors crying ‘foul.’

With two board seats now being allocated to councils, these seats normally are allocated to govenrment 'yes men', the board of Polis hopefully will end up 'pro-island and anti-demolition.'

There is always a seat on the board for one of the five mayors covered by the Polis remit and this year it is Pina’s turn but with a board meeting set for December 15th, just two weeks before the company is due to be wound up, many ask ‘what is the point?

The government has appointed José Pacheco as the new chairman of the board of directors of the discredited Sociedade Polis Litoral Ria Formosa and Rogério Gomes as a new board member. Polis is to be wound up on December 31st 2016.

The two appointments replace Sebastião Teixeira and João Alves who resigned at the end of October after their mishandling of the Ria Formosa property demolition fiasco.

A resignation letter signed by by Sebastião ‘Demolition man’ Teixeira, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Polis Ria Formosa, and board member João Alves, has been accepted by the Minister for the Environment João Matos Fernandes who on Tuesday called a halt to the Ria Formosa island demolitions planned for today, October 27th and called for some sensible dialogue and a case by case review.

Throughout the island campaign Teixeira has acted in a covert manner and has failed to consider anyone’s point of view but his own, hiding behind ‘the law as he sees it’ despite the laws being contested by hundreds of islanders with the support of countless thousands of more balanced members of the public.