Regional Government awards 28 awards of excellence in "Eco Village 2019" programme
The Regional Secretary for Energy, Environment and Tourism highlighted the awarding of 28 awards of excellence under the "Eco-Village, Clean Village 2019," involving the participation of all islands of the archipelago: one on Corvo Island, one on Flores Island, seven on Faial Island, two on Pico Island, one on São Jorge Island, one on Graciosa Island, seven on Terceira Island, five on São Miguel Island and three on Santa Maria Island.
"This is a distinction that we have been awarding since 2014, the year when the Awards of Excellence were established as a fair recognition to highlight the role played by the Local Authorities. In this context, we emphasise the importance of creating stable and transparent relations with local authorities, in this particular case with parishes, always in pursuit of the public interest," stressed Marta Guerreiro. The Regional Secretary spoke in Ponta Delgada at the Awards of Excellence ceremony that took place simultaneously on all the islands of the archipelago, through an online broadcast.
This award represents a distinction to the parishes that stood out for their performance on each of their islands, having achieved the highest score in most of the evaluation criteria, namely in cleaning and maintenance efforts.
According to the Secretary for the Environment, "rewarding performance and distinguishing excellence not only recognises the effort of the populations and their local authorities, but also encourages the maintenance of cleaning actions in public spaces towards an effective change in behaviour."
At the same ceremony, 37 parishes received the kits of "My Stream" project under the "Eco-Village, Clean Village" 2020 programme, corresponding to the best applications, an investment of 62 thousand Euros.
"We delivered to each parish a battery-powered brush cutter as a way of symbolically evoke the importance of decarbonisation and the gradual replacement of combustion engines, either in mobility or in the equipment that we use in daily life, such as chainsaws (delivered last year) or the brush cutters that are being delivered to you today," noted Marta Guerreiro.
About 139 parishes have registered in this year's edition of the programme, with applications submitted to the specific projects "My Stream" and "Clean Coast," covering interventions in 205 kilometres of water lines and 161 kilometres of coast, respectively. These projects correspond to an overall allocation of 462,500 Euros of financial support.
Marta Guerreiro conveyed a message to the programme's participants for the "commitment to safeguard" the environmental heritage on each island of the archipelago "by preserving and making it suitable for visiting, especially in these particular circumstances and at a time when it is even more important as we celebrate the World Environment Day."
In her speech, the government official quoted some excerpts from the 1972 Stockholm Declaration, which makes this United Nations Convention a milestone in the way we regard this relationship between human beings and the environment, with June 5 June being celebrated as World Environment Day.
"We have reached a point in history where we must shape our actions around the world more closely to the consequences that these may have for the Environment. Either due to ignorance or indifference, we can cause immense and irreversible damage to the environment of the planet on which our lives and well-being depend," said the government official.
In the current context, the Regional Secretary stated that "the changes in daily life have environmental impacts," highlighting that "the changes that occurred over the last two months have also had consequences."
"But we are and will always be here, facing the challenges of this 'new normality' and continuing to promote good practices as a factor of progress and sustainability," defended Marta Guerreiro.