Twelve years ago I published a report on the methods used elsewhere in the EU for 40 years to prevent rural fires.
Over many summers, Portugal twice has lost thousands of hectares of forests and pastures which has affected the small rural producer.
Since 2003, when much of Serra de Monchique burned, NASA, and not only NASA, has made long-term forecasts. If I, a simple citizen, read these statements, other Portuguese agencies also will be reading them. So why it is that governments do not prevent these tragedies?
Rural fires devastate the economy of hardworking and humble microproducers that keep alive our unique culture.
Fires destroy not only the rural raw material such as wood for furniture and paper, pasture for animals, nectar for honey, but they change the local geology which causes soil erosion and changes in the sub-soil.
Affected rivulets are dry, nature is killed and water has to be pumped from deeper levels. Soil is further impoverishes and future fires are more likely. Landslides increase hits the front page of English and German newspapers when tourists die.
"It takes ten years to create good appeal for tourism, but only two to ruin it," I wrote in an Algarve newspaper in August 2005.
It seems that the Civil Defence and a few companies that sell specialised services and equipment enjoy fires while sensors and systems to detect and prevent fires are much cheaper.
Operational publicity shows the public the firefighting work. Some freshly-shaven commanders in their impressive, award-winning uniforms using dramatic language. They are calm and clean with no beads of sweat while the poor firefighters who risk their lives, and the people who suffer, are desperate.
TV stations love fires. It all looks like a Hollywood film with men running around with concerned looks on their faces. The commanders provide information just like in a war movie – loads of detail with hellicopters, special trucks and firefighters as a backdrop.
Many profit from fire but no one talks about the families who have lost everything. The arrogance of a few at the expense of thousands of ordinary people. Eden is destroyed for our grandchildren to inherit.
"Let’s speak again when the mobs set fire to the banks." This seems to have been the policy for decades.
The powerful abuse the peaceful nature of ordinary people. As folks are not heard and depressed when nothing changes, they emigrate, as they did under Salazar’s rule.
In 2005 a newspaper reported on a lecture I had given, "Jack warned that the only way to avoid fascism within ten years is to protest, write, and strengthen associations."
“Democracy does not fall from heaven,” he said, “it must be earned every day for the powerful to understand that the law is same for all."
In 2006, I wrote in Jornal de Negócios, "The Social Contract is destroyed when your home burns down. Why are there fire? Why are so few arrested? Why are the instigators free? Who wins with rural fires? Why has there been no prevention for decades? Why are there still cartels?"
In my bilingual book ‘Portugal pós-Troika?’ (‘Portugal after the Troika?’) I wrote that the current big parties that generate the chaos depend on the cartels to win votes.
Why the huge slowness of justice, compared to Northern Europe?
Why we do not have what other western countries and Brazil have, protection for, and laws to encourage whistleblowers?
Ten years ago I wrote, and had to repeat a year ago, "EU subsidies will decline. The voice and pressure of the poor will be heard hear from twelve new countries'.
Let’s wait for the cuts to European funding starting in November this year. The economic situation in Portugal will get much worse in 2017.
I love Portugal and I repeat what the President said: "the good Portuguese people deserve better politicians.”
