LPN comment of the Public Consultation on the Agricultural Project for Avocado Production

Framework

The agricultural Project for avocado production, Hass variety, develops in an area of about 128 hectares, located in the Luz and Bensafrim and Barão de São João parishes, Lagos municipality. The agricultural project comprises 27 avocado plantation sectors, already installed, sectioned by a drip irrigation system. The project proponent is Frutineves Lda.

Assessment

The Project started without proper authorization. The project led to changes in land occupation in the National Ecological Reserve (REN), completely changing the vegetation cover in areas subjected to special protection, to which a special territorial regime applies that establishes a set of restrictions to land occupation and transformation. These changes and the plantations begun and were concluded (in August 2019) without the proper Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report only now, January 2021, the first year of the first harvest of avocado, is in public consultation.

Final remarks

In view of the non-compliance of the national legislation applicable to REN, the habitat destruction for the installation of an agricultural project of an intensive culture of an exotic species with high water demands, without proper approval of the project, LPN considers that this agricultural project of avocado production should have unfavorable Environmental Impact Declaration.

Since, despite not being approved, the project is already installed, areas subjected to special protection, which aim to protect natural resources, especially water and soil, and safeguard processes essential to an effective land management and to ensure nature and biodiversity conservation, essential components to the biophysical support of our country, were lost for other land uses and it is not possible to ensure the effective and efficient adoption of preventive and/or minimization measures,  it is our understanding that there is an obligation to revert the land to its original conditions.

26 January 2021