Opposers to the mine in Boticas block Savannah's work

Opositors to the mine in Covas do Barroso, Boticas, are today blocking Savannah’s work on land under administrative servitude in protest against what they claim to be “the imposition of the project”.

The president of the U.S. Barroso Covas Defense Association (UDCB), Nélson Gomes, told the Lusa agency that the blockade aims to stop work in one of the areas of administrative servitude and admits that it is a need to “scale resistance” in the face of the lack of answers and the “inflexibility of the government to listen” to the demands of the population.

In a telephone interview, he said that about 30 people gathered this morning to prevent Savannah Resources from continuing the work and stressed that the “land, either wasteland or private, is of the population.”.

In May, the Ministry of the Environment authorized a second administrative servitude, which allows Savannah to enter community and private land for geotechnia work, which was challenged in court by a restraining order brought by the Board of Directors of the Barroso Covas Parish, which led to the suspension of the surveys for about 20 days.

Nélson Gomes said it is “I need to resist the project” and recalled that the fight against mining has been done for almost 10 years, with “very much damage” to the lives of those who oppose the mine.

“ But we have always said that we will not give up, the struggle continues and increasingly escalates, because when the entities do not answer us, they do not care about us, when the government completely ignores the concerns of the population, the will of the population, makes no sense”, he stressed.

Adding that this is a project “that endangers people’s quality of life, the environment, the waters.

“So this project has everything to go wrong. We do not agree, we do not agree, we do not accept”, he said.

The president of UDCB pointed out to the Directorate-General for Energy and Geology (DGEG) and to the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), “entities that should monitor the project and that do not answer the questions” that have been made, including the deforestation that occurred outside the authorized period and the removal of water from the streams.

This, he stressed, “at a time when water is scarce” and there are even rivers that have dried up.

“The government does not manifest itself, it is quiet (...). So we're being completely ignored. It is a government that is passing over the population, it makes no sense, we are Portuguese like others, we have the same rights, so we have the right to defend what is ours”, he stressed, stressing that this is a region classified as World Agricultural Heritage and that “now they are allowing Savannah to destroy this area”.

He also pointed to “about 10 mining projects and survey requests only in the Barroso region”.

The mining project in Covas do Barroso was made possible by the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), with the issue of a favorable DIA conditioned in 2023.

Savannah Resources intends to start construction in 2027 and achieve the first production in 2028.