Communities for the regeneration of land, water and forests

Lithium mine in Covas do Barroso

Savannah Resources wants to open an open-pit lithium mine in a centuries-old farming area, against the wishes of the local population and the town council. In February 2026 the Association United in Defense of Covas do Barroso and ClientEarth took the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union — the first test of the EU's Critical Raw Materials Regulation. After the European Commission refused, in December 2025, to remove Barroso from the list of "strategic projects," the organizations opened a new case against the Commission itself at the same court.

July 2026 update: in May, the Mirandela Administrative and Tax Court granted an injunction filed by the Covas do Barroso commoners' association and halted a second administrative easement and on-site works. Savannah suspended works on 9 June — but the Government responded with a formal Resolution reaffirming the project's public interest, and the company resumed field work later in June. Production is now expected in 2028.

Quarries with no environmental oversight — Borba and Vila Viçosa

232 registered quarries across these two municipalities — 55 in Borba, 155 in Vila Viçosa. More than half have no valid environmental and landscape recovery plan, leaving abandoned pits at risk of contaminating aquifers, since they lack the clay and liner layer that protects soil in controlled landfills.

Secil's quarries inside the Arrábida Natural Park

The League for the Protection of Nature and six other environmental organizations are demanding that Secil present a concrete decommissioning plan for its quarries inside a protected area, in one of the country's rarest ecosystems.

July 2026 wildfire wave

Between 3 and 6 July, Portugal faced a national alert for extreme heat and fire risk. In a few days, 4,592 incidents burned more than 30,000 hectares — the largest area burned in this period since 2017. The crisis reflects years of land abandonment, eucalyptus monocultures and lack of preventive forest management.

Sophia and Beira: petition seeks suspension of both mega solar plants

One of the largest photovoltaic projects ever proposed in Portugal: 867 MWp, from Lightsource bp, with an investment of around 590 million euros. Under Article 52 of the Constitution, a petition reached the Assembleia da República calling for the immediate suspension of licensing for two mega plants — Sophia (867 MWp) and Beira (269 MWp) — which together would spread over farmland, listed heritage and the habitats of species found nowhere else in Portugal, and for an independent technical-scientific audit of the impact studies already submitted.

The affected area is habitat to 231 vertebrate species, 30 of them threatened with extinction — among them the Spanish imperial eagle, the cinereous vulture and the black stork. The project would also destroy more than 1,158 hectares of montado and fell more than 2,200 protected cork and holm oaks. No one behind the petition opposes renewable energy — what's being rejected is a transition built on centralized mega-structures imposed on the interior, instead of decentralized solutions like self-consumption, energy communities, or panels on rooftops and already artificialized land.

Amara Village at Castelo de Bode

A 50-hectare tourist resort is being prepared on the shores of Castelo de Bode — the country's second-largest reservoir, a strategic public water reserve serving around three million people in the greater Lisbon area — without, according to Quercus, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The law requires that assessment from 10 hectares upward: this project is five times that threshold.

It's called Amara Village: 193 properties, apartments and houses, plus support infrastructure including a wastewater treatment plant. July 2026 update: Tomar's town council clarified that it does not, so far, have any tourism project under this name in the licensing phase — the only administrative act issued for the land was a subdivision and urbanization works permit, tied to a 2011 Detailed Plan. In other words: the land is prepared for construction, but the tourism project itself has not yet formally entered environmental review. It's precisely that absence of an EIA before works proceed that Quercus continues to demand be resolved.

Girabolhos Dam

The dam the Government presents as a response to flooding in the Lower Mondego would not have prevented the floods that justify it. Over nine days in February 2026, enough rain fell in Girabolhos's catchment area to generate about 309 million cubic meters of water — more than the reservoir's total planned capacity of 245 million. The calculation comes from the environmental association ZERO. The area draining into Girabolhos accounts for less than 15% of the Mondego basin; the remaining 85% keeps generating floods the dam would not intercept.

It's an old project: conceived under José Sócrates's ten-dam program, cancelled in 2016 for cost-benefit and environmental reasons, and brought back onto the agenda in April 2026 after a winter of flooding. July 2026 update: the public tender for construction was indeed launched on 15 July, with completion expected in 2038. Quercus challenged the Government to "have the courage" to cancel the tender, and GEOTA notes the project has already been rejected several times in the past. It would flood, according to GEOTA, "one of the last near-natural stretches of the Mondego river" — and the Minister of the Environment herself has already admitted the dam does not solve the flooding problem, at best it mitigates it.

Sobreira de Baixo Photovoltaic Plant (EDP)

Set to be EDP's largest solar plant in Europe: 96 hectares of direct footprint within an 836-hectare property. The project was redesigned in September 2025 after the Portuguese Environment Agency identified "highly significant" impacts on Bonelli's eagle and on bats from a roost of national importance linked to Alqueva. The cinereous vulture faces collision and electrocution risk from the project's power lines — the League for the Protection of Nature has already requested a review of the environmental impact study.

Reform of the environmental and nature agencies weakens oversight

In May 2026 the Government announced a reform of the Portuguese Environment Agency and the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests that replaces prior environmental assessment with after-the-fact inspection, under the banner of "administrative simplification" and AI-driven digitalization. ZERO, SPEA and Quercus warn this could weaken the protection of land, biodiversity and climate — SPEA notes the reform "contains no reference to biodiversity protection, protected areas, or Portugal's European and international obligations" on nature conservation.

Portugal is already under an EU infringement procedure for failing to comply with the Birds and Habitats Directives. Environmental organizations warn that swapping prior assessment for after-the-fact inspection could worsen that situation and expose the country to further sanctions — and also make it harder for organizations themselves to challenge projects before the damage is already done.

Portugal without a contingency plan for the climate emergency

More than 100 Portuguese municipalities have still not submitted the municipal climate action plans that have been legally required since 2024. Experts describe Portugal's response to heat waves as "reactive" rather than preventive, and call for a structured network of climate shelters and information reaching the most vulnerable people, instead of relying solely on online communication.

Looming now is a warning of a potentially historic El Niño approaching between October 2026 and early 2027. According to IPMA, its direct effects on Portugal are not statistically significant — but a climatologist from the University of Lisbon warns the biggest concrete risk for the country remains wildfires.

Montijo airport was stopped, but Alcochete moves ahead with bigger risks

It's true that Montijo fell through: after years of opposition, the Lisbon Administrative Court declared expired, in April 2026, the Environmental Impact Statement that underpinned the project there, legally sealing the end of that location by the Tejo estuary. But Lisbon's new airport was not cancelled — it moved. The Government confirmed in March 2026 the Alcochete firing range as the definitive location, and works are proceeding at "breakneck speed": the environmental impact study was submitted to the Portuguese Environment Agency in July 2026, with an estimated investment between 7.9 and 8.9 billion euros.

According to environmental organizations, Alcochete is the most problematic of the three sites once considered: the project threatens more than 250,000 cork oaks, sits above the Tejo-Sado aquifer system — the country's largest freshwater groundwater reserve — and the runway flight cones overlap with bird migration corridors between the Tejo and Sado estuaries.

Valtreixal mine (Calabor): environmental permit denied

On the other side of the border, but right next to Portugal, the Junta de Castilla y León denied, in May 2026, the environmental permit for the planned open-pit tin and tungsten mine at Calabor, in the Valtreixal deposit. The project sits around 5 km from the Portuguese border and a few kilometers from the Montesinho Natural Park in Bragança — an area that shares ecosystems and waterways with the Portuguese side of the border, including populations of Iberian wolf. The Spanish decision is also a win for cross-border conservation.

Photovoltaic hybridization at the Penedo Ruivo wind farm, Serra do Marão

German company EnergieKontor wants to install around 25,000 solar panels — covering about 7 of the project's 21 hectares — next to the existing Penedo Ruivo wind farm, between 1,120 and 1,220 meters of altitude in the Serra do Marão. The Steering Committee of the Serra da Aboboreira Regional Protected Landscape has already issued an unfavorable opinion, pointing to "significant material incompatibilities" with nature conservation. More than 1,700 people have already signed a petition calling for licensing to be suspended until a "more thorough and independent" environmental assessment is carried out.

Renewable acceleration zones threaten critical areas — and the consultation ended in controversy

The Sectoral Program for Renewable Energy Acceleration Zones (PSZAER), under public consultation between 17 June and 15 July 2026, identifies 455,000 hectares in Portugal as priority areas for solar and wind plants, streamlining licensing for these projects. Environmental organizations warn that several of the zones proposed in the Algarve and the Alentejo overlap with territories essential to nature conservation and with habitats of species classified as "threatened" or "critically threatened".

July 2026 update: the consultation ended in controversy after the Nordeste Vivo platform reported that it only gained access to the exact locations planned for the Nordeste Transmontano region through a leak — the georeferenced maps had never been made available to local populations, despite repeated requests. The movement accuses the Government of running the process "in the shadows," demands the procedure be suspended, and says it is ready to move toward national mobilization, including protests, if the process doesn't change.

Expansion of the Monte Rei golf course, amid a water emergency

The Monte Rei Golf & Country Club group wants to build a second 18-hole golf course, across an intervention area of more than 56 hectares — about 30 of them lawn alone — between the Serra do Caldeirão and the Atlantic, in a rural and agroforestry area. The environmental association ZERO issued an unfavorable opinion on the project, calling it "incompatible with the water emergency" being experienced in the Algarve and a risk to the fundamental right of local populations to sufficient, good-quality water.

The town council proposes that irrigation be done exclusively with treated wastewater, without drawing on surface or groundwater — but the debate exposes a bigger tension: as golf courses and luxury resorts multiply in the Algarve for foreign investment, local populations and agriculture in the region face cuts and water scarcity.

Sertã: more than 25% of the municipality marked for solar acceleration zones

Sertã is one of about ten municipalities nationwide where the PSZAER maps at least 25% of the municipal territory as a renewable acceleration zone. The town council issued an unfavorable opinion on the proposal during the public consultation, warning of impacts on a territory it classifies as "environmentally sensitive" and of "high landscape value," and arguing that the boundaries of the proposed areas do not adequately safeguard the municipality's environmental, landscape and socioeconomic specificities — nor its territorial development strategy, built around valuing local resources.

The Beira Baixa Intermunicipal Community — which brings together Castelo Branco, Idanha-a-Nova, Oleiros, Penamacor, Proença-a-Nova, Sertã, Vila de Rei and Vila Velha de Ródão — went further, issuing an unfavorable opinion on the entire program, warning of "enormous impacts" on the community and territory of the whole region.

National Nature Restoration Plan: public consultation until August 19

The Government presented, in public consultation between 9 July and 19 August 2026, the draft National Nature Restoration Plan — the instrument that applies the EU Nature Restoration Regulation in Portugal. The plan foresees an investment of 500 million euros per year through 2030 and sets out 407 measures across eight domains: terrestrial, coastal and freshwater ecosystems, marine ecosystems, urban ecosystems, river and floodplain connectivity, pollinator populations, agricultural ecosystems and forest ecosystems.

Among the commitments: restoring at least 20% of the country's terrestrial and marine areas by 2030, and planting three million trees a year. Unlike the other cases on this page, this one isn't a fight against a project — it's an opportunity to strengthen, with concrete input, the ambition of a plan that the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests has directly called on the public to help shape.

Lagoa Salgada mine: petition calls for the project to be cancelled

A 196-million-euro investment by Redcorp — Empreendimentos Mineiros to exploit a polymetallic copper, lead and zinc deposit, holding Project of National Interest (PIN) status since 2022. After the Portuguese Environment Agency issued an unfavorable Environmental Impact Statement on the redesigned project, Redcorp filed an injunction at the Beja Administrative and Tax Court to suspend that decision and keep the construction alive, originally planned to start in 2026. More than 2,000 people have already signed a petition calling for the project to be cancelled entirely.

Grândola's Municipal Assembly approved, on 30 April 2026, unanimously, a position of firm opposition to the project, pointing to eight serious risks — among them environmental and social damage in the Silha do Pascoal and Água Derramada areas, and threats to aquifers essential to public water supply. The Assembly proposes to the Government that the PIN status be withdrawn and the licensing cancelled. The petition's signatories also warn of water consumption far above reasonable levels in a region already hit by extreme drought, and of 1,880,000 tonnes of waste expected per year of operation.

Projeto Cultiva: school and community garden threatened with eviction in Lisbon

Created in 2024 by Sylvain Papyon and Rodrigo Borralho, of the Rizoma Integral Cooperative, and funded by Lisbon's city council, Cultiva is a space for certified organic farming, environmental education and community participation at Escola Gil Vicente. It has been announced that the space will remain in operation only until 12 September 2026, with no renewal planned — following works by the Portuguese Army on adjacent land (Campo de Santa Clara, 133) that require part of the space occupied by the project for construction logistics.

A concrete plan was presented to the parties for sharing the space between the garden and the works, which would allow the two to coexist — but that proposal was not considered by the Army, an entity with no rights over the land where Cultiva operates. The petition asks the Assembleia da República to recommend a review of the decision to discontinue the project and to promote negotiations toward space-sharing solutions.