How Palestine’s National Flower Mirrors Its People’s Plight
ATMOS (22/7/2025) With the arrival of spring, a carpet of flowers blankets the occupied West Bank. Even the lands scarred by Israel’s 400-mile separation barrier burst into color as the blossoms emerge. In the northeastern village of Faqqu’a, surrounded by Israel’s fence, one flower stands out: a tall iris with large, deep purple petals and sword-shaped leaves. Iris […]
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Ganancias corporativas, pérdidas ambientales: el mayor lago artificial de Europa impulsa olivos intensivos
EL SALTO (19/10/2025) Una enorme presa construida con fondos públicos en el sureste de Portugal prometió desarrollar una de las regiones más áridas y empobrecidas de Europa. Sin embargo, la agricultura industrial de olivos está destruyendo ecosistemas y provocando la erosión del suelo y la pérdida de biodiversidad, mientras grandes corporaciones obtienen beneficios. Las hileras […]
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Western Europe’s largest artificial lake was meant to save Alentejo. It may be doing the opposite
GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE (August) The Alqueva dam promised prosperity for Portugal’s parched south. Instead, it’s fuelling a corporate-driven monoculture that ecologists and farmers warn is destroying the land and the way of life it sustained. On a bright winter morning, Eva Barrocas watches over her sheep as they graze in the olive grove her grandparents planted […]
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Where shepherds coexist with wolves
BBC (9/8/2024) “My two favourite animals are sheep and wolves,” says Miguel Afonso as he looks over his flock of 200 sheep bleating and grazing on the gently rolling hills surrounding the village of Rio de Onor in northeastern Portugal. Holding his sturdy crook, the 34-year-old shepherd doesn’t see his love for wolves as inconsistent […]
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‘Sometimes I wonder if I’ll come back’: Palestinian birdwatchers defy danger to scan the skies
THE GUARDIAN (6/6/2024) Sitting in the shade of an olive tree in the valley of Ein Qiniya, northwest of Ramallah, wildlife photographer Mohamad Shuaibi starts to enumerate the birds he can spot that spring morning. Swifts and swallows flit and swoop around, a short-toed eagle hovers in the distance, a jay sits perched on an […]
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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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Europe’s thirst for lithium threatens livelihoods, biodiversity in Portugal
AL JAZEERA (30/1/2024) Paulo Pires walked up the hill with his flock of sheep and dogs on a warm day in August, as a stream of water gushed down an ancient irrigation channel that has been maintained by local communities over many generations. “There is a lot of wealth here,” said Pires, now resting in […]
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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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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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