Association +Pinhal obtains status of Equivalent to NGOA

A environmental association + Pinhal, created in March 2025 to defend the Forest Perimeter of Ovar Dunes, obtained the status of Equipped the Non-Governmental Organization of the Environment (ONGA), today reveals the institution itself.

According to Lusa the founder of the structure based in Esmoriz, in the municipality of Aveiro district and Metropolitan Area of Porto, the certification was awarded in September by the Portuguese Environment Agency, which already lists the +Pinhal at RNOE – National Registry of Non-Governmental Organizations of Environment and Equipped.

“ This recognition is the result of the support and trust of all members, whose contribution has allowed to exceed the minimum number of 100 members required, and to whom +Pinhal thanks for making this achievement possible ", says Margarida Coelho.

The doctor and biologist stresses that the new status of the association “strengthens its legitimacy to intervene in environmental issues, raise awareness of the community, promote environmental education initiatives and participate in the defense of natural heritage”.

To the extent that it allows it to “access to specific rights provided for in the law, including forms of participation in public procedures”, the new certification ensures that, in view of interventions in the Ovar Forest Perimeter, for example, +Pinhal “can request official information on management plans and administrative decisions” that have a relevant impact on this tree spot.

According to Ordinance No 478/99 of 29 June, an entity Equivalent to the NGOA, it is distinguished from an NGOA because it has a slightly broader scope of action than “exclusively the defense and valorization of the environment or of the natural and built heritage, as well as the conservation of the strictly environmental nature”. In practice, the Equipped cannot be profit-making or partisan or trade union, but their formal definition says that they have “the environment, natural and constructed heritage or nature conservation as their main area of intervention”, so their social object can be more comprehensive or result from the grouping of various entities for related purposes.

The activities that +Pinhal has been carrying out since 2025 include the promotion of public petitions such as “Let’s Save the Ovar Forest”, the publication of analysis reports to the management plans of this forest spot, the establishment of partnerships to defend the botanical species Corema album (camarinhas), the organization of guided walks with comments on local biodiversity, the holding of yoga sessions in the pine forest, etc.

For Margarida Coelho, obtaining the status of Equipped to NGOA only one and a half years after the constitution of +Pinhal results not only from the continuation of these and other initiatives provided for in the plan of activities of the house, but also from the observance of aspects such as “financial transparency, organised accounting, presentation of activity reports and the existence of plans for future actions”.

The certification by the Portuguese Environment Agency is therefore “an important milestone” in the course of the institution, which is now said to be even more committed to protecting the 2,580 hectares of dunar forest created in Ovar in the 1930s to fix mobile sands and combat coastal erosion. “The achievement of this status strengthens our desire to continue to do more for the defense of this natural heritage,” concludes Margarida Coelho.