Matilde B.
02.26.06 01 Open the gates, let us in!
The Alqueva dam on the River Guadiana in southern Portugal is the largest artifical lake in Europe. The entire Alqueva project includes a total of 10 dams, 3,000 miles of irrigation canals and dozens of new roads, bridges and pumping stations.
The site is considered to be the third most important area for the country’s tiny Iberian lynx population, the world's most endangered cat. The area is also home to endangered golden eagles and river otters.
The dam, conceived in 1957, was initially designed to create water for a new industrial city. Now the official purpose of the Alqueva dam is to supply water to the fields of the Alentejo, a semi-arid region in southern Portugal.
Opponents believe the thin soils are not suited to intensive agriculture and say that the dam was done to benefit golf courses and exclusive tourist resorts that will be built on some of the 460 new islands created by the dam. Knowing this generation of portuguese politicians, I feel tempted to say that environmentalists are probably very close to the truth.
02.26.06 01 Open the gates, let us in!
The Alqueva dam on the River Guadiana in southern Portugal is the largest artifical lake in Europe. The entire Alqueva project includes a total of 10 dams, 3,000 miles of irrigation canals and dozens of new roads, bridges and pumping stations.
The site is considered to be the third most important area for the country’s tiny Iberian lynx population, the world's most endangered cat. The area is also home to endangered golden eagles and river otters.
The dam, conceived in 1957, was initially designed to create water for a new industrial city. Now the official purpose of the Alqueva dam is to supply water to the fields of the Alentejo, a semi-arid region in southern Portugal.
Opponents believe the thin soils are not suited to intensive agriculture and say that the dam was done to benefit golf courses and exclusive tourist resorts that will be built on some of the 460 new islands created by the dam. Knowing this generation of portuguese politicians, I feel tempted to say that environmentalists are probably very close to the truth.