Portugal’s Environment Minister, Jorge Moreira da Silva, assured anyone who would listen that no luxury tourism construction projects are in place for when the Algarve’s Ria Formosa islands have been cleared of houses.
 
Moreira da Silva reiterated that the process to demolish these properties was approved over ten years ago but gave no sensible reason why the work had not been done, with the Polis Ria Formosa society needing an extra year even to start the process.

Olhão council is lodging an injunction to suspend demolitions of properties on the Ria Formosa islands as the destruction of houses may soon be considered illegal by the courts.

Olhão council also is one of the members of Polis, the agency which is organising the eradication of what it considers illegal homes to make the island prettier on spurious environmental grounds.

Portugal’s parliament today voted for the continuation of the demolition of 800 properties on the Algarve's Ria Formosa islands, but not before a group of islanders in the public gallery disrupted proceedings and were ejected.

The last ditch petition by opposition parties asked for the suspension of the demolition programme to take the heat out of the controversial programme that already has seen the destruction of around 200 properties resulting in homelessness and despair.

A 'Save the Ria Formosa' petition has been launched for those who think the deliberate dumping of raw and semi-treated pollution into this Algarve lagoon is a bad thing.

The pollution from toxic sewage flowing into the Ria Formosa has been ignored for years by successive Olhão and Faro councils whose members have been fully aware that the waste water treatment plant that serves their citizens fails to cope with the throughput.

Portugal’s Environment Minister, Moreira da Silva, said today that the demolitions in the Ria Formosa are to continue until 800 homes have been flattened.

The minister assured colleagues that all families whose properties are their first homes are being relocated, thus giving the clearest signal yet that either he has not been paying attention to the actual situation, or that lying comes naturally.

The Ria Formosa burst into life on Saturday morning as a flotilla of around 200 vessels took part in a protest against the demolition of peoples’ houses on the islands.

The protest set off from Faro and passed each island affected in the current struggle which is seen locally as economic vandalism, and in Lisbon as moving the rabble out of the way, leaving only sand.

A long convoy of cars departed from Olhão on Saturday morning, destination Faro beach in a protest against the demolition of houses on the Ria Formosa islands.

Islanders want to draw further attention to the actions of the government which through its agency Polis is demolishing 800 so called illegal island buildings.

Portugal’s Communist Party has demanded the immediate suspension of demolitions on the Ria Formosa islands in a new draft resolution; the fight continues.

The Communists have presented their petition to parliament and demand a halt to the demolitions on the islands under the Polis Litoral Ria Formosa programme, a legal process that  has been misused by the authorities and mismanaged by Polis.