Portugal, as other European countries, has witnessed to an ...



Session 39

Authors: Paula Cristina Remoaldo and Anita Cláudia Peixoto

Universidade do Minho, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Secção de Geografia, Campus de Azurém, 4810 Guimarães, Portugal

Population and sustainable development – the case of Agra Village in the Northwest of Portugal

Context

Portugal, as other European countries, has witnessed, for the last decades, to an accelerated depopulation of the interior of the country. The only difference resides in the fact that the majority of the other countries have not bet in the tourism as the only solution to contradict this tendency.

Only in the nineties we began to attend in Portugal to one thwart of the inertia, but the examples of success continue to be very few. Sortelha has been pointed out as one example of success at national level. The Programme of Recovery the Historical Villages seems having results! After all in less than three years the mutations in arquitetonic terms turned up to be almost vertiginous! Though the success should be considered as very relative because "very pretty villages with houses very pretty", but in great part of the time almost deserted, with very few residents, are not important to a development that one wants sustainable.

In England, Belgium, Holland, Norway, that is, all over Europe, the solutions to resist abandon and disappearance of villages and villas, formerly alive, have not been just the development of tourism. To find an idea, an "only thing", that allows the survival of villages lost out by that world, has been the mote. The Booktowns and the villages of the antiquity are an example of that, emerging concrete names of villages and villas as Montolieu (France), Hay-On-Wie (England) or Redu (Belgium).

In Portugal, one of the few examples of success nowadays is, in our perspective, the Village of Agra, that unlike others well-known cases of recovery, possesses a significant resident population (n=77). Placed in the North of Portugal, in Rossas, in the Vieira do Minho municipality, at about 50 Km of Braga, placed in the Mountain of Cabreira, has a pretty landscape, that includes the River Ave, as well as a group of habitations typically rural.

Rewarded in 97 in Galiza as an original example of integrated tourism, still not very known, in spite of all the difficulties it seems to constitute a good example of a genuine sustainable development, although there is still a lot to do. It has managed to survive to the real state interests, to the turistical promoters, which for many constitutes a great help, by the way they promote the tourist offer. But, factors, as the aging of the resident population and the low instruction level, constitutes in our opinion a barrier, that can or not be overtaken in the process of tourist popularisation.

The present paper analyses the main results of an investigation carried out among January and September of 2000, based on inquiries made to the inhabitants of Agra, whose main aims were:

➢ to evaluate the conditions of life of the Agra population ;

➢ verify the opinion of the population face to a tourist development suffered in the last years;

➢ verify as the population deals with the fact that the village is identified as an original example of integrated tourism;

➢ evaluate the investment opportunities for a continuous sustainable development.

The work hypotheses, from which we set to the accomplishment of the investigation were the following ones:

1. The Village of Agra is a case of success in the field of the sustainable development because its population joined in almost in a collective way to the existent nets of information;

2. The Village of Agra is a case of success in the field of the sustainable development as having resulted also from the great investment of the political forces of the municipality, namely the City Hall of Vieira do Minho.

3. It exists a dynamic population that has been betting in the tourism as the only solution that can contradict the depopulation and promote the superior level of life.

Methods

In order to evaluate and to characterize the realities and potentialities in the Village of Agra, in a general and correct way, we decided to carry out an inquiry.

The accomplishment of an inquiry by self-administered questionnaire was thought, since it allowed a greater quickness in the formulation of the inquiry. However it was passed over due to the low-level instruction of the population object of study, that would induce difficulties in the fulfilling of the questionnaire.

This way, we decided to do the inquiry by interview, of directive or standardised type (GHIGLIONE, R; MATALON, B.,1992; ALBARELLO, L., et al., 1995), that embraced the whole population of the Village Agra (n=77), centralizing the inquiry in the head of the house since he is the most representative person of the family.

The inquiries were carried out from the 2nd to the 9th of August of 2000, having the interviews the duration average of 15 minutes. The sample was preceded by a pre test that was accomplished in August of the same year.

The questionnaire used on the survey had 38 questions and the main variables were about the socio-economic, habitational conditions and tourist offer.

Results

The municipality of Vieira do Minho, where the Village of Agra is located, possesses an important natural patrimony that reflects itself in an extreme beauty (e.g. Mountain of Cabreira, Mountain of Fafe), a classified and reduced patrimony, that urges to be reviewed, debating itself with countless difficulties at the demographic level: a population loss that has been accentuating, a lower population density, an aging of the population aggravated by the decreasing of the birth rate population.

To these problems, a lower economical basis with serious problems in the primary sector is attached, that sector entered in total decadence, as the population transferred to the remaining sectors of economical activity, that present deep lacks visible in the reduced offer capacity, specialized services and in a notorious lack of equipments.

Placed in Mountain of Cabreira, the Village of Agra, has a pretty landscape that includes the presence of the River Ave as well as a group of habitations typically rural.

For a long time, the development of the Portuguese rural world was always associated with the agricultural activity. With the crisis of the agricultural sector, several transformations were operated in the rural space, the emigration and the rural exodus for the industrialized urban areas were inevitable, and far behind stayed an aged population with weak resources. For a long time, these spaces became forgotten or abandoned, not demonstrating any capable answer to solve the serious problems they faced. The depopulation, in many of the peripheral areas of mountain (if not in all), became threatening.

But, in the nineties, the Community Program LEADER appeared, and with it the hope to invert the tendencies. The opportunity also appeared for the inhabitants of Agra that knew how to take advantage of it.

It was in September 1995, that the transformation of Agra began to operate, having 9 houses of the century XVII and XVIII been recovered, with the purpose of fomenting the tourism of rural habitation in the Village of Agra. Externally 5 old habitations and support spaces to the development of the local gastronomy, with the traditional taberna were also recovered.

Everything was bet on this project, that would give a new vitality to the Village Agra, creating a resource to the population that saw the agricultural activity more and more decadent, without giving a capable answer to their needs.

The Village of Agra was rejuvenated, becoming the houses an authentic success, capable to attract tourists of the most varied parts and pointing out a tourism offer capacity that is not of despising: 48 beds, distributed by 24 rooms, from which 16 are suites. In what comfort conditions are concerned, all the houses posses television and kitchen and they are full with equipments.

With the accomplishment of the inquiry in the Village of Agra, 77 resident people were counted, from which 26 presented a superior age of 65 years. With inferior age of 5 years, it exists only 3, which means a drop in the birth rate and reflects an aged population and a change of mentalities of the traditional values. If before children were seen as resources to help in the agriculture now they are seen as responsibilities.

The population points out a socio-economical low statute, translated in a very low level of instruction and in low liquid familiar monthly income. Eleven people were diagnosed that did not attend the education system although 3 of them know how to read and to write.

The majority of population (n=35) possesses only four years of scolarity. At the same time, eight of the twenty-two families’ aggregate, whose number of elements varies between 1 and 3, counts with the monthly income family liquid inferior to 250 Euros. If it was not the agriculture on partial time that is developed in every elements of the aggregate of the Village and the fact they do not pay any rent, we would affirm that a part of the population of the village would live on the threshold of poverty. The nine families that posses recovered houses by the community program LEADER (to see examples in the Figures 1 and 2) for tourist ends are assumed as the ones that have the better monthly income, in three of them over than 750 Euros.

Figure 1 – House of Santo – an example of a restoring house in Village of Agra

Figure 2 – House of Martinhos – another example of a restoring house in

Village of Agra

Even being assumed as a peripheric mountain area, all the habitations, except one, posses electricity, and all the habitations posses coming channeled water in the same number of the public and of the private net.

On the other hand, the habitations present typically characteristics from Minho, that is to say, they posses two floors. In the earthy floor several functions can be conjugated: warehouse (for 20 habitations), trade (for one of the habitations) as a court for the animals. It can still be occupied by a kitchen, a house-of-bathing or a cellar. The superior floor is destined to the residential function.

In spite of the existent harmony among the granite of the façades, the wood of the window-frame and the white of the painting, this combination not always reveals to be well accomplished, since in three habitations the general state of conservation is very bad, while in nine it is reasonable, good in six and very good only in four habitations (Figure 3).

Figure 3 – An inhabited house in a good conservation state that was

recently restored

Figure 4 – An inhabited house in a bad conservation state

In spite of the current improvements since 1995 of the application of the Community Program LEADER, works that urge to be accomplished were diagnosed at the most varied levels. The repairing of the façades, of the coverings, of the coatings and the finishing and the new electricity facilities and canalisations can be pointed out.

Even with limitations at the most varied levels, most of the population named Agra as the desirable place to inhabit, owed essentially to the serenity and its natural conditions.

At tourist level Agra, in its inhabitants' opinion, offers safety, life quality, craft, a natural patrimony and a good geographical location.

However, the population still considers necessary more interventions, that agrees to what we diagnose in loco: improvements in the shackles, recovery of houses for tourist ends, works on the walls of the public road, recovery of the façades, bury all the existent cables, to have better accesses and to do a parking park.

Conclusion

The developed work aloud us to validate the three hypotheses of work, from which we set. It was proved that the Village Agra is a case of success in the field of the sustainable development, because the population joined in, in a collective way, to the nets of information, without which, it would not have knowledge of the Community Programmes, or if they had, they would not know what they were, neither what kind of actions it provided.

It is about a case of success in the field of sustainable development due to the great investments of the political forces of the council, especially, on the part of the City Hall. Finally, it is due to the fact that the population have fought for a " new life ", a "new image " of the Village, that passed from decadent and repulsive to attractive.

As main investment opportunities in the village, to submit to LEADER III we suggested:

1. Recovery of all the existent constructions in the Village, even if they are not destined to the tourist, including porches, granary, stills and the mills of Ave, that are located in the village and that are in total degradation state;

2.The use of granite instead of cement on the walls surrounding the village;

3. Substitution of the metallic coverings by traditional roof-tiles;

4. Creation of a place where the village's artisans can display their handicrafts;

5. To foment the local gastronomy, namely, the cheese and the butter, that so well do the owners of the tourism houses;

6. To bury the existent cables in the Village;

7. To improve the shackles, walls and berms, even if they are built in granite;

8. To do a parking park to avoid that the village becomes disorganized and impossible to circulate in the most narrow streets;

9. To trace pedestrian courses capable of pointing out the existent resources;

10. To organise a program with the tourists' participation in traditional rural works;

11. Improvements of the Internet site that promotes the Village Agra.

References

CÂMARA MUNICIPAL DE VIEIRA DO MINHO – Plano Director Municipal, Vieira do Minho, 1994.

CÂMARA MUNICIPAL DE VIEIRA DO MINHO – Programa Escolas e Oficinas, 1998.

GHIGLIONE, R; MATALON, B. – O inquérito: teoria e prática, prática, Celta Editora, Oeiras, 1992.

INSTITUTO PORTUGUÊS DO PATRIMÓNIO ARQUITECTÓNICO ARQUEOLÓGICO – Património Arquitectónico e Arqueológico Classificado – Inventário, vol. I, Secretaria do Estado da Cultura, Lisboa, 1993.

NAZARETH, J.M. – Princípios e Métodos da Análise Demográfica Portuguesa, Editorial Presença, Lisboa, 1988.

QUARTENAIRE – Estudo de enquadramento e de viabilização da actividade de turismo na aldeia de Agra, Porto, 1998.

REMOALDO, P.C., et al. – Os problemas da integración Ne Europa, p.69-105, in Xosé Manuel Souto Gonzaléz (coord.), Geografia do Eixo Atlântico, Tipografia Regional, Vigo, 1999.

REMOALDO, P.C.; CARVALHO, E.; CALDEIRA, M.J. – Problemáticas do Norte Rural, in “Sociedade e Cultura 1 – Cadernos do Noroeste”, Série Sociologia, Braga, 13(1), 2000,p.81-107.

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