My name is Pedro and I come from Portugal. For now I am a research fellow for agricultural science at the university of Lisbon. Here I want to specialize in sustainable food production and sustainable agriculture.

Are you doing the same thing in the Portuguese youth organization GAIA, you are volunteering for?

Not really. My youth organization is quite special, as we are a `grassroots’ organization. We try to show the people that they have to consider the environment as vital. We should stop doing business as usual, stop thinking about getting maximum profit. Things like the local community benefits, the efficient use of resources….these things are really important. We are active in a lot of things that are related to this kind of philosophy, to this kind of ethics, that is very important to change the thinking of the society. It involves projects on renewable energy sources, participatory democracy processes, Agenda 21, local exchange trading systems without money, animal rights, nature protection (for example: against the building of dams or the use of genetic modified organisms),… So really a lot of things.

Some people might be surprised, as the “environment” is really a broad issue for you. The common association of the environment is rather limited to nature and its ecology. But for you it seems to be much more. How to you bring your broad viewpoint to these people?

I would say: if people would start to think about: “Where do the things I consume come from?”, and if they would try to go this production chain backwards, then they will ask for example: “Where does the chicken I buy in the supermarket come from?”, “Where does the bottle that I buy come from?” Lets have a look at the bottle: plastic bottles are made out of oil. And oil is already all about the environment. Everything comes from the environment. The things that we build, all the technology we use… is only there because environment was there to build it. If the industry pollutes, the pollution will damage the environment and as the environment is the originator, it is not going to be there for the next years, if they pollute continuously. That is why people don’t think about this. But they have to do so - and that is even very easy. Maybe if they do not want to think about it by themselves, they should try to talk to people which already thought about it. That is us – an environmental organization.

Could you give some examples, how to achieve this environmental awareness?

We always try to do creative things! We often organize street events, as this is not conventional. It proved always better to pack your message about the environment into unconventional things like a role play, comics, a theatre play… to do a rather dynamic things. Then people get more attracted and pass the message better on. So by a lot of creativity, you can be successful! And try also to put people in a context, that is not the normal context of their modern life. For example, with GAIA we did a bicycle tour around southern Portugal. It was unconventional for the people who lived in town and normally would go by car. While in the rush of a town life they would not have the time to think “What is going on here?”. The bicycle tour opened a new perspective.

Is there anything activists/young people from other countries could contribute/ do to help the environmental protection of Portugal?

If you are available for travelling, just come to Portugal. Use your ethics to build eco-oriented projects with our activists. For example young people from GAIA are currently running the Centre of Convergence, a multi-purpose and modular space that is set in a Desertification Area and aims for Rural Development through local initiatives creation. There are a lot of available opportunities in topics like tourism, waste management, organic farming + permaculture and more. If you feel this is not the moment yet, there is always possibility to communicate through European and international networks for setting up direct action demonstrations, joining forces for alerting the media, sharing the skills between us so that our ideas will have a better impact. For example we have interest in learning more about how to make an eco-oriented project self-sufficient, in terms of generating enough money to be sustainable.

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us. Good luck for your future work!

This interview was carried out by Michael Huettner, supported by Miguel Tavares