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ladies european tour golf
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Concerned
Martin - very valid points, and I can't argue with your personal experience.
I do not want to get into the 'how much water a golf course uses' debate all over again because I am not sure it is that relevant to the bigger picture.
Tourism as a whole creates a demand for water, from hotel laundries to street cleaners. Desalination is naturally one answer, but I don't think lobbying the golf courses is the solution.
I would expect that Pestana are as concerned about the water situation as every farmer in Portugal - they have a lot to lose - but eventually it is only at a government level that expensive projects such as the new reservoir (now scrapped because of environmental concerns I believe) or desalination plants can be made into reality.
Tourism generates a lot of tax revenue, and if this is squandered on unnecessary things (I could mention a large white elephant of a football stadium) then the Government ought to be brought to account.
I will happily accept that the golf courses and tourism as a whole do not help the water situation, but equally at least there is income into the area to sustain the population through dry times - this is definately not the case in some other countries that when faced with drought, which does happen naturally every so often, are totally crippled.
This is a critical subject which should be debated, hopefully in a sensible way, looking at the whole picture rather than just having a go at one particular minority who frankly don't have the power to change anything - no matter how much they might like to.
PS It is actually possible to play golf and to be concerned about the environment - they are not mutually exclusive.
I do not want to get into the 'how much water a golf course uses' debate all over again because I am not sure it is that relevant to the bigger picture.
Tourism as a whole creates a demand for water, from hotel laundries to street cleaners. Desalination is naturally one answer, but I don't think lobbying the golf courses is the solution.
I would expect that Pestana are as concerned about the water situation as every farmer in Portugal - they have a lot to lose - but eventually it is only at a government level that expensive projects such as the new reservoir (now scrapped because of environmental concerns I believe) or desalination plants can be made into reality.
Tourism generates a lot of tax revenue, and if this is squandered on unnecessary things (I could mention a large white elephant of a football stadium) then the Government ought to be brought to account.
I will happily accept that the golf courses and tourism as a whole do not help the water situation, but equally at least there is income into the area to sustain the population through dry times - this is definately not the case in some other countries that when faced with drought, which does happen naturally every so often, are totally crippled.
This is a critical subject which should be debated, hopefully in a sensible way, looking at the whole picture rather than just having a go at one particular minority who frankly don't have the power to change anything - no matter how much they might like to.
PS It is actually possible to play golf and to be concerned about the environment - they are not mutually exclusive.
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portugeezer
we can spend here debating about water shortages for weeks and weeks, and wouldn't take us nowhere or even solved the water shortages, the main reallity is we can buy tinned veg, if people in algarve that lives on tourism and i mean 90%, don't have tourists then they can't survive or even buy tinned veg, of course algarve always had people, but that doesn't mean that agriculture was the main source of economy, the main source of economy used to be fishing, algarvians had fish and people from north had veg, there's a strait swop, nowadays the agriculture is wine grapes and oranges, and this is not the first time that algarve had problems with water shortages, wine grapes and orange threes don't need much water, they need sun, the hoter, the better the wine, or sweeter the oranges.
i'm not very keen in golf myself either but brings tourists to the region, when algarve didn't have golf courses also had water shortages, the farmers sold most of their lands to build golf courses anyway, they where getting thousands of euros to modernise their farms but they didn't, all the money thei've got so far from EC was enough to get a plant to convert salt water to fresh, but instead they bought expensive cars and build swimming pools on their land and made extensions on their houses so they can rent it ou to TOURISTS and now they are cocerned about water shortages?
i'm not very keen in golf myself either but brings tourists to the region, when algarve didn't have golf courses also had water shortages, the farmers sold most of their lands to build golf courses anyway, they where getting thousands of euros to modernise their farms but they didn't, all the money thei've got so far from EC was enough to get a plant to convert salt water to fresh, but instead they bought expensive cars and build swimming pools on their land and made extensions on their houses so they can rent it ou to TOURISTS and now they are cocerned about water shortages?