The sustainability of the underground ecosystems of the municipality of Loulé will be the subject of an academic chair, based on a celebrated protocol that includes the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon and the municipality, the Algarve Chamber announced.
The protocol, signed this Friday, will allow “institute the first chair in ‘sustainability of underground ecosystems-Loulé’” and has as signatory to the Chamber and the Academic Institution, FCIENCIES.ID-Association for Research and Development of Sciences and the company specialized in sustainable real estate projects, highlighted the municipality in a statement.
The purpose of the chair is “decisively to contribute to increasing the knowledge and sustainability of the environmental heritage of national underground habitats”, with “special focus” the Barrocal Zone Algarvio, area between the coast and Serra, with “high ecological and strategic value for climate and water resilience”, justified the Faro district autarchy.
“The Loulé Cave, considered a world-class cave hotspot, is in the genesis of this discipline that will operate at the University of Lisbon campus, at the Center for Ecology, Evolution and Climate Change, and includes a five-year work plan (2025-2030),” he said.
The contents will address “various components of study” that will “fill existing gaps in the national panorama” and contribute to the “safeguarding of these ecosystems”, said the municipality, quantifying 370,000 euros the necessary financing for the creation of the chair, supported, in equal parts, by the House and Bondstone.
The Chamber of Loulé also clarified that “the chair is structured in three main axes”, one of scientific domain, designed to deepen the knowledge of underground ecosystems, making an “identification, characterization and evaluation of the endemic biodiversity present in the underground” and an evaluation of the “impact of human activities in these sensitive habitats”.
“In the field of education, the chair will promote the development of curriculum internships, master’s dissertations, doctoral theses and other initiatives that will allow to increase scientific literacy,” according to the municipality.
Nature conservation is the third axis of the chair and aims to “develop a national strategy of environmental public policies for the conservation of underground ecosystems, based on a solid scientific knowledge, with concrete measures that potentiate ecological resilience and the valorization of the territory”.
According to the municipality, this is a “excellence research project”, which has an “active participation of local researchers, students and communities” to promote “environmental literacy” and foster “involvement of civil society in the protection of the most unknown and sensitive ecosystems on the planet”.
“This initiative is the recognition of the value of the natural heritage of our county, which will allow not only its appreciation and dissemination, but also the production of knowledge at the level of Cavernola biodiversity, a part of the natural capital that provides services to human communities that we still know bad,” reads the note.
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