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Forwarded from A SACHOLA

Communiqué from A SACHOLA - March 2025

A SACHOLA was founded in June 2023. It was born from the collective desire to create a space of encounter between those who inhabit the Barroso region and those who stand in solidarity with it.

Generously, one of the rooms of the former primary school in Covas do Barroso was made available to us. Here, we organized cinema screenings, concerts, meetings, exhibitions, artistic residencies, and hosted people from all corners of the world to fight alongside the Barroso communities. It was also here that we maintained a permanent information center, with documents, leaflets, zines, flyers, posters, and newspapers about the struggle.

This has been an important space where we could socialize, learn, and experiment. It was, above all, a space that, for a year and a half, supported many people who came to help in the fight against mining – it was in the school that we slept, cooked, and rested.

Now, we feel the need to create a new space where we can continue doing all of this, autonomously. We want this new space to be a meeting point, a place of convergence, and a welcoming space for all those who want to take care of Barroso.

We already have a space waiting for us. But it's a house that needs a lot of repairs, love, care, rebellion, and creativity.

To build this house, we appeal to your solidarity and generosity. To start, we ask you to continue organizing benefits in your spaces and territories. In a few weeks, we will also begin a crowdfunding campaign. Soon, we will also organize the first construction days.

While this has been a long-standing desire, the current moment accelerated the need and urgency to create this space. The British company Savannah Resources is forcefully entering the villages of Covas do Barroso, Romainho, and Muro, harming waters and lands, and bringing their workers to these villages. To date, they have already occupied three houses. This aggressive entry is an attempt to penetrate a territory where the project is not accepted.

In May 2023, the Portuguese Environmental Agency required the company to carry out further prospecting on private and communal lands. This is an essential condition the company has to meet in order to get the final environmental license. Since the company does not have access to lands to conduct these prospecting activities, it requested an administrative easement, which was granted by the Directorate-General for Energy and Geology in December 2024. This easement gives the company the right to enter and work on private and communal lands to carry out these surveys. This easement – widely contested by the local populations and associations – was suspended in February 2025 due to a precautionary injunction filed by three individuals. However, this suspension lasted only two weeks, as the Ministry of the Environment presented a "reasoned resolution," arguing that the prospecting activities were of "national interest." Since February 24, 2025, the company has resumed its activities on the ground.

We want to ensure that the people of Barroso are not alone in this fight against extractivist delusions. We want to ensure that Barroso – a region classified as a World Agricultural Heritage site by the United Nations – is not torn apart so that a few can profit from its destruction. We want to live in a world of dense forests, abundant gardens, clean rivers, and pure waters; a world where free people coexist in harmony with other species.

A world like this begins by creating spaces where it is possible to dream of it. Help us build this house.

More news soon.

See you soon,
A SACHOLA

Contacts:
Telegram: @asachola
Email: asachola@riseup.net

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