Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Nature and Biodiversity Protection Programme
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation's Nature and Biodiversity Protection Programme provides core funding to eight environmental NGOs across P…
Rewilding
Rewilding Portugal is restoring wild corridors in the Greater Côa Valley, while smaller projects let nature take the lead on abandoned land. Portugal's emptiness is its opportunity.
Projects in this focus
SPEA – Sociedade Portuguesa para o Estudo das Aves
SPEA is a Portuguese non-profit environmental NGO, founded in 1993 and affiliated with BirdLife International, dedicated to the study and co…
ANP | WWF – Associação Natureza Portugal
ANP | WWF is a Portuguese environmental NGO working in association with WWF to conserve nature, restore ecosystems and influence environment…
LPN – Liga para a Protecção da Natureza
LPN – Liga para a Protecção da Natureza is the oldest environmental NGO in the Iberian Peninsula, founded in 1948, dedicated to nature conse…
Grupo Lobo
Grupo Lobo is a Portuguese association dedicated to the conservation of the Iberian wolf since 1985, combining scientific research, environm…
Tapada Nacional de Mafra
Tapada Nacional de Mafra is a historic walled forest in Portugal dedicated to biodiversity conservation, research and public nature experien…
Regen Waves
Regen Waves is a non-profit movement regenerating the Arrábida bioregion in Portugal through native 'superforests', community-led Regen Walk…
Plantar uma Árvore
Plantar uma Árvore is a Portuguese environmental NGO dedicated to native forest conservation and ecological restoration through volunteer-dr…
GEOTA
GEOTA – Grupo de Estudos de Ordenamento do Território e Ambiente – is a national non-profit environmental NGO active since 1981, working on …
Rewilding in Portugal
Rewilding starts from a fact most countries do not have: the Portuguese interior is emptying. Villages that held hundreds now hold dozens, and the fields around them are going back to scrub on their own. Rewilding is the decision to steer that instead of fighting it, restoring grazing herbivores, water and connectivity, then stepping back.
Rewilding Portugal works in the Greater Côa Valley, building a wildlife corridor between the Malcata range and the Douro. Smaller projects do the same thing on a single abandoned property.
Wolf, Iberian lynx, vulture and wild horse all figure in this work, which makes it slow and politically delicate, most of the land is private and grazed. Several organisations take volunteers and run field visits. Dated activities from these projects are listed in our events calendar. Related focuses: habitat restoration, land stewardship and tree planting.