In another 11th hour call to arms’, anti-oil campaigners PALP have issued a statement today alerting people to the first open debate with MPs on oil and gas exploration plans for the Algarve.
Due to take place in Faro’s Clube Farense on Saturday evening at 9pm, PALP is exhorting “the presence of the population in this debate which it says “could mark another step towards an Algarve free of oil and natural gas”.
Considering it has been scheduled for what is many people’s ‘busiest night of the week’, it remains to be seen how many supporters will show up.
At least this time they have been given more than the 24-hours’ notice that preceded the President’s visit last week to Loulé (click here).
PALP says it has organised this debate with MPs from the Bloco de Esquerda, PAN (People Animals Nature), PCP (Communists), PEV (Greens), PS (Socialists) and PSD (Social Democrats) so that the various parties’ positions can be clarified.
Meantime, anti-oil groups elsewhere remain busy and focused.
Lisbon’s Climáximo has just produced a darkly comic video on the subject, linking all the names who stand to gain from the multiple licenses signed in the dying days of the last PSD/CDS-PP government (click here), while ASMAA is launching a new Banners on the Beach initiative, designed to cover as many beaches as possible along the region’s coastline in a bid to “get the message out”, to locals as well as holidaymakers.
Running from August 3 to September 3, full details of ASMAA’s campaign, supported across the board by community groups, can be found here: (click here).
The use of the beach as a arena for attracting attention worked miracles last week when what began as a small protest by community group Tavira em Transição made all national news media, and united “hundreds if not thousands of people” (click here).
