Alentejo tangerine plantation approved despite water warnings

Portugal's Alentejo regional environmental authority (CCDRA) has approved, for the first time, an intensive irrigated farming project by the Aquaterra group on the Murta and Monte Novo estates near Comporta, after three earlier rejections. The revised plan replaces avocados with tangerines and reduces the area to 295 hectares, with 12 water boreholes. Environmental group Zero and the Portuguese Botanical Society criticise the decision, warning it threatens a critically overexploited aquifer and endangers protected dune plants within the Comporta/Galé Natura 2000 site, despite an unfavourable technical opinion from a national geology laboratory.