Monte Alegre Association and Vale de Santiago need your help to continue our legal fight against an illegal intensive pig farm less than 400 meters away from the village, which has been operating without license, permits or oversight since 1980.
Monte Alegre Association would like to welcome you to Vale de Santiago, a beautiful village with less than 300 inhabitants in rural Alentejo, South of Portugal. Vale de Santiago is home to Monte Alegre Association, as well as hectares of cork trees, sheep, birds, storks, bees, wild boars… Despite this natural environment, Vale de Santiago is suffering since the early 80s from the consequences of an illegal pig farm located less than 400 meters away from the homes in the village (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB8biZlx_ks). Since its foundation, this illegal farm has been growing without any control or accountability from a small pig farm with a few pigs to a class 1 intensive pig farm with over 4,000 pigs in over 5,000 m2 of illegal buildings.
Exemplo de porcas reproductoras quinta intensiva / Example of breeding pigs in intensive farm
In 2018 a group of neighbors from Vale de Santiago decided to join efforts in order to change things in Vale de Santiago. The first steps comprised negotiating directly with the farm owners, who agreed to make adjustments, if a certified company attested such illegalities. Based on the agreement, the group of neighbors reached out to the relevant authorities to assess the flagrant illegalities. However, what the neighbors received in response from the institutions only confirmed the collusion between the farm and public institutions.
Tired of this collusion, the neighbors of Vale de Santiago decided to hire a certified company in noise auditing, which after the relevant measurements, concluded that the farm wasn’t abiding by the current noise legislation (RGR and Report), which was then confirmed by the relevant public institution in this matter (CCDR email). Despite the agreement, when the neighbors shared the report with the farm, they replied that it wasn’t accurate, and that we, the group of neighbors, were acting in bad faith. This was 2021, and was very frustrating for the neighbors and the village. Since then, some of the neighbors have left us (either passed away since the majority of Vale de Santiago inhabitants are over 70 years old, or moved away) and others are trying to sell their properties (many of them unsuccessfully).
A group of us however decided to keep going and founded Monte Alegre Association, with the aim of changing the conversation from and informal group of neighbors, to a more institutional level. The Association aims to level the playing field in this David vs Goliath situation (important to note that the farm makes almost 1 million euros per year, just from this farm, and pays no taxes, license fees or fines). Since its inception, the Association continued investing heavily in additional assessments from certified companies and aid from specialized lawyers. Through this legal help, the Association has been able to start changing the narrative, legally verifying and proving all illegalities we knew existed (illegal borehole, illegal buildings, no business license…) as well as others we didn’t know of, which have been going on for over 40 years with no accountability nor control.
Despite all these proven illegalities, the collusion with local public institutions is preempting the Association from changing the situation once and for all, reason why we are reaching out to you, to seek your support to fund the legal advisory fees until July 2024, which has proven to be the only way to start changing the narrative. We at the Association believe that after six years of fight, we are close to taking this problem to a higher instance, out of the local collusion. This legal action is taking place in several fronts (borehole, constructions, noise, no license…) and we are hopeful that before the end of 2024, the farm will be legally required to abide by the law.
Your support however will not only help Vale de Santiago, but other villages suffering from big companies that take advantage of the lack of resources in rural areas to monitor illegal activities, or a fuzzy regulation that doesn’t protect citizens nor nature, but rather favors and even fosters illegalities like this one. Because you must remember, this is just one of the thousands of illegal farms, and therefore just the first step in a long path. This path, however, is an inevitable one, especially if we are to make the changes we need to make to save our planet as we know it.
Now is the time. Vale de Santiago, Alentejo, the world, can’t wait any more.
Vista aérea quinta ilegal Vale de Santiago / Aerial view of illegal pig farm in Vale de Santiago
