The government announced on Wednesday that the Algarve will see water cuts of 25% in agriculture and 15% in the urban sector, which includes tourism, in order to preserve water reserves and cope with the drought.
Duarte Cordeiro said today that no compensation is planned for the water cuts imposed on the tourism sector in the Algarve, justifying that there are no restrictions “on the development of the activity”.
“We don’t foresee the need for any kind of compensation for the sector,” said the Environment Minister at a press conference at the end of the Council of Ministers meeting.
The government announced on Wednesday that the Algarve will see water cuts of 25% in agriculture and 15% in the urban sector, which includes tourism, to preserve water reserves and cope with the drought. According to the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Maria do Céu Antunes, possibilities for financial support for the agricultural sector are being studied.
Asked about the other sectors affected, Duarte Cordeiro stressed, on the one hand, that there is no “restriction on the development of tourism”, only a “conditioning regarding water efficiency and water saving”. For this reason, he dismissed the need for support and added that “the sector should show the country its ability to internalize this process of change as something positive, something that could enhance the Algarve”.
As for commerce, he explained that the government’s ability to implement measures restricting some commercial activity is still being assessed and only then will compensation be considered.
The need to impose water cuts in the Algarve was decided by the Permanent Commission for the Prevention, Monitoring and Follow-up of the Effects of Drought which, according to Duarte Cordeiro, proposes 46 measures that should be included in a resolution by the Council of Ministers.
They should be applied by municipalities, Águas do Algarve, the Algarve Regional Coordination and Development Commission, the management of hydro-agricultural schemes and the tourism sector.
In the opinion of the Environment Minister, the measures were mandatory given the current situation in the Algarve, where the capacity of the reservoirs is at a level of 25%, compared to 45% last year at the same time.
“If we didn’t take decisions, we ran the risk of not having water for public supply by the end of the year,” he said.
The minister also added that the proposed measures were the result of two weeks’ work in the region with farmers, the tourism sector and mayors.
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