In Portugal’s Rural North, Communities Are Resisting Lithium Mining
NEW LINES MAGAZINE (24/4/2024) Under the banner of a “green transition,” the EU is rushing to revive mining to secure critical raw materials. Plans to build large, open-pit mines in northeastern Portugal have been met with strong opposition from local communities, who are contesting the state’s authority to grant mining licenses without their consent. As […]
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In these ancient oak forests, it is possible to produce while preserving the environment
WASHINGTON POST (3/2/2024) The rhythmic noise of axes whacking trees echoes in the depths of the cork oak forest. But in Coruche, a rural area south of the Tagus River known as Portugal’s “cork capital,” the bang of trees falling to the ground doesn’t follow the sound of the ax strokes. Instead, experienced workers carefully […]
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Lithium mining threatens agricultural heritage in Portugal’s Barroso
MONGABAY (11/12/2023) In the hills of Barroso high in northeastern Portugal, the water gushes down small channels built many centuries ago, winding through a mosaic of pastures, oak and pine forests, and arable and fallow land. Sitting on her porch overlooking a carefully kept garden full of flowers and vegetables, Aida Fernandes remembers the day […]
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As the Climate Warms, Jordan’s Worsening Water Crisis Offers a Glimpse of Future Challenges in the Middle East
OUTRIDER (3/4/2023) By the dry riverbeds of northeast Jordan, Jehad Al-Masied sat down and remembered a time when water would flow. “When we were kids, we learned to swim here,” he said as he walked to the edge of a now-empty reservoir surrounded by dark basalt ruins last December. Winter rain used to stream down […]
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Europe’s growing appetite for berries is sucking up Iberia’s water
EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL (March 2023) Autumn in Doñana National Park was once a spectacle of abundance. First the rains would arrive. Then, the birds. Journeying from Northern Europe, millions of migratory birds would descend on the wetland complex in southern Spain, heralding the start of the new season. Northern shovelers, pintails, whistling ducks, and other […]
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In the Iberian peninsula, “unsustainable, unviable” berry businesses are draining water and exploiting migrant labour
EQUAL TIMES (5/12/2022) On a breathless summer morning in El Rocío, a village bordering Spain’s Doñana National Park, Juan Romero points to a map detailing the surrounding area. “Here are the berry crops,” he says, tracing their encroachment of the park from the north and west. “It’s all full of plastic.” For years, the retired […]
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Agribusiness depletes soil and water in Portugal’s Alentejo
AL JAZEERA (11/10/2022) Sitting in her home in a white-washed village nestled in Alentejo’s gently rolling hills, 92-year-old Inácia Cruz likes to reminisce about simpler times. “This region was rich in bread,” she says wistfully. “We would produce olive oil, cereals and cork. We didn’t need to buy things from abroad. We grew our own […]
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They make a desert and call it profit – How berry exports are draining Iberia
JOURNALISMFUND.EU Across the southern Iberian Peninsula, plastic greenhouses stretch to the horizon where rain-fed olives, wheat and grapes were traditionally grown. Spain and Portugal are Europe’s main producers of water-intensive berries. But the region is also one of the continent’s driest areas, where droughts are becoming more frequent. Reports have warned Europe’s fruit garden is […]
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Preserving heat-adapted seeds to feed a warming world
MONGABAY (20/9/2022) Sitting cross-legged in the summer sun, Fatima collects seedpods from fava beans in Terbol, a quiet village surrounded by cypress trees and vineyards in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. “It’s my first day here,” she says as she smiles shyly, glancing over the hills she had to cross with her family to flee […]
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Jordan scrambles to save rare Red Sea corals
MONGABAY (14/2/2022) Dozens of tiny, dazzlingly colorful fish swim around a maze of layer upon layer of corals. When divers approach, they hide near a dome-shaped colony. In the clear, warm waters of Aqaba, clownfish, butterflyfish and angelfish swim next to a military tank deliberately sunk in the 1990s, now one of several wrecks that […]
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