{"id":253,"date":"2012-07-31T19:44:13","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T18:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paradise-in-portugal.com\/blog\/?p=253"},"modified":"2012-08-02T09:03:40","modified_gmt":"2012-08-02T08:03:40","slug":"mosquitoes-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paradise-in-portugal.com\/blog\/?p=253","title":{"rendered":"Mosquitoes Rule!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw a great quote the other day on Facebook; it went, \u201cIf you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito\u201d.
\nIt\u2019s so appropriate right now I quote it again, as our little petition<\/a> to try to save Salgados has had the most amazing effect!
\nWe started the petition because we thought someone had to stand up and say \u201cENOUGH!\u201d and if no-one else was going to, well, it might as well be us, but we never thought that it\u2019d be as successful as it has been. It\u2019s gone right around the world \u2013 and then some \u2013 continues to grow and grow and has had really great consequences.
\nFirst of all, it\u2019s raised awareness of the issue and put Salgados on the map as far as a groundswell of opinion against further development of this fragile area is concerned, but it\u2019s done much, much more.
\nThe water levels at the lagoon are rising to where they should be at last, (though unfortunately too late for this year\u2019s breeding success as a great number of birds didn\u2019t make it), and as far as rockets under \u201ccompetent authorities\u201d backsides are concerned, it\u2019s been as great a success as any I\u2019ve ever known. APA, the Portuguese Environment Agency, put out a press release the other day in an attempt at Damage Control, blaming the water loss on a single farmer \u2026 this was quickly picked up by the press and shown to be a fabrication and distortion of facts. APA\u2019s already dubious competency took yet another knock. It also became common knowledge that, notwithstanding an agreement of management having been signed with SPEA and the RSPB over four years ago, they have yet to even install a meter for the neighbouring golf course \u2013 so have no way of knowing how much water has been taken by that entity, despite saying that they have taken 30% less water this year than last. The publicity engendered by the petition has shown APA in a very bad light indeed, and I sincerely hope that lessons will have been learnt.
\nAnother good thing to have come out of the petition is a letter from the Ramsar Convention to the Portuguese Government. This is really quite an achievement and has been generated uniquely by the raised awareness granted by the petition.<\/p>\n

There have been some organisations that have really helped the petition along the road, principally of course Avaaz themselves, (so if you haven’t joined their organisation I suggest you do), but notably also the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust<\/a> that have pulled out all the stops to grant it more publicity, so a very big thank you to them and to SPEA<\/a> too who are right there and have been since the beginning.<\/p>\n

We had a meeting last night chaired by Almargem and there were representatives from Quercus, the LPN and SPEA as well as several concerned individuals like myself and members of the local press. Amongst other actions, we\u2019re going to invite the Portuguese President, who\u2019s coming on holiday just down the road in a few week\u2019s time,\u00a0 for a quick view of Salgados itself and the neighbouring, empty and derelict resort \u2026 I wonder whether he\u2019ll reply!<\/p>\n

So, what happens now?<\/p>\n

Well, the effort continues, so if you have friends who haven\u2019t yet signed the petition, beat them around the head until they do<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong>, that\u2019s the first thing! Only with the petition growing steadily but surely can we give the NGOs the tool with which to fight for greater protection of the site and a rescindment of the building permission already granted. This is seriously important.
\nNext, if you\u2019re in Portugal come along to Salgados on the 6th August at 14.00 and join our protest \u2013 the more the merrier. We\u2019ll be at the Dunas Caf\u00e9 on the western edge \u2013 and if you know any members of the press do tell them about it!
\nNow I have to do just that, so see you there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw a great quote the other day on Facebook; it went, \u201cIf you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito\u201d. It\u2019s so appropriate right now I quote it again, as our little petition to try to save Salgados has had the most amazing effect! We started the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paradise-in-portugal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paradise-in-portugal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paradise-in-portugal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paradise-in-portugal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paradise-in-portugal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paradise-in-portugal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paradise-in-portugal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paradise-in-portugal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paradise-in-portugal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}