The Ecological Impact of Migration in Rural Portugal
The effect of hobby farmers, off-gridders and other privileged foreigners flocking to the area
The number of people moving from urban areas of wealthy nations to rural inland regions of Portugal has been rising sharply for many years. In one remote municipality, Penamacor, immigrants of mainly British origin were reported to make up 10% of the population in 2018. The figure is both staggering and bewildering when seen in light of the ongoing net trend of rural depopulation, with the number of inhabitants in the same town falling from 16,000 to 5,000 in 50 years.
While this new wave of often vocally self-promotional migrants is widely considered to have a regenerative effect on the rural economy, their impact on the environment is an altogether different story. In order to fully comprehend this impact, it’s worth taking a brief look at the history of migration in the area and its effect on local agriculture and ecology.
The reasons for Portugal’s rural depopulation are complex. The country’s colonial and dictatorial past have played a significant role in its long history of emigration. The resulting erosion of rural community life has been accentuated by residual political and administrative hierarchies which successive governments have been…
