Letters, reports, alerts and images. Everything has reached the mystery of the Internal Administration. Dangers of illegal shellfish harvesting also affect consumers, but so far “everything is the same”.
Fernando Pintopresident of the Chamber of Alcochete, says that, in recent times, he sent almost daily emails with photographs to the former Minister of Internal Administration, Eduardo Cabrita.
On May 15th, with a new government led by Luís Montenegro, he tried his luck again, he tells , also sending email to the Prime Minister’s office, which began with “Your Excellency, the subject that my communication raises is not new, it is not unknown…”.
The theme of these emails is always the same: reports, images and other warnings about the dangers of illegal harvesting of clamsa recurring problem in the municipality.
In the letter he sent to Montenegro in May, the mayor brought together “in ‘cc’” several ministers: Internal Administration, Economy, Infrastructure and Housing, Labor, Solidarity and Social Security, Agriculture and Fisheries, Justice, Environment and Energy.
It was a compilation of municipal minutes from 2018 and 2019. The mayor warns in the email of a set of consequences that could arise from the illegal exploitation of Japanese clams.
The list is long: “pollution beaches and adjacent areas; behaviors inappropriate for life in society; growth of illegal neighborhoods without habitability and health conditions; concentration of people of foreign nationality, often illegal and victims of labor exploitation and even human trafficking; public health problemsthrough the consumption of unpurified seafood; economic crime; silting of the river; degradation of the Ponte-Cais, among others”.
“Until now nothing happenedI didn’t get any response. Everything is the same, a mix of accumulated problems, labor, housing, security, health, environmental”, laments the mayor. “Neither the previous government nor this one did anything.”
Fernando Pinto even says that “the theme even served as a flag in the last election campaignthey promised, they were on site but it was nothing more than that”. He defends the creation of a “task-force” to combat the problem, which has only been growing in Alcochete.
“This isn’t going to attack the octopus’ tentacles one by one”, criticizes the mayor. “You have to go to the head.”
Fishermen from the catamaran that collided this Monday with a Transtejo Soflusa passenger ship they were carrying out this activity when they collided with the boatan accident that caused injuries to two collectors — one of them is in a very serious condition, says the —, and left two missing.
In the Tagus, around 20 to 30 tons of clams are removed per day, says Expresso, with a minimum market value of 60 thousand euros, which amounts to a annual total of 22 million euros. However, the values are even higher when this product is trafficked abroad, where it is sold much more expensively. Per year, the clam could earn illegal fishermen in the Tagus 124 million euros.
According to the weekly, “there are drug traffickers changing their work area”because clams are extremely profitable. In the Tagus, there will be around 1128 collectors dedicated to this illegal activity.
The problem is that all consumers may be affected by this business. The Japanese Tagus clam is prohibited for human consumption because it is contaminated with high levels of E.coli, like this toxic metastases that accumulate in the river due to decades of industrial exploitation in the area.
Since 2023, the National Maritime Authority (AMN) and GNR have carried out several major projects.
A member of these teams says that “we have given strong shake-ups to the business to put an end to this regime of impunity, there are big targets to fallbut quickly others get up. The international vector, of cooperation with the authorities of the receiving countries, is increasingly the way to cut the networks in their entirety. And also the financial part, with the seizure of assets and bank accounts. Only prison no longer scares themyou have to attack what hurts.”
