Wildfires sweep Portugal, northern Spain, killing dozens

Lisbon/Madrid: At least 36 people have died in wildfires raging through parched farmlands and forests in Portugal and another three in neighbouring north-western Spain.

Residents walk past a burnt bus as a wildfire moves
forward in Chandebrito in the north-western Spanish
 region of Galicia. 

Firefighters were battling 50 blazes in Portugal and a similar number in Spain on Monday, local time.

Portugal's government has asked for international help and declared a state of emergency in territory north of the Tagus river - about half its landmass.

Flames ripped across Iberian countryside left tinder-dry by an unusually hot summer and early autumn, fanned by strong winds as remnants of ex-Hurricane Ophelia brushed coastal areas.

Read the story by Andrei Khalip and Raquel Castillo in today’s Melbourne Age - "Wildfires sweep Portugal, northern Spain, killing dozens.”

Three ingredients for running a successful environmental campaign

Clearing machinery arrives on site under
heavy police protection, January 2017.

Here in Perth, a battle is raging over a 5km stretch of road known as Roe 8. 

Work on the project, part of the proposed Perth Freight Link, began late in 2016 and as legal avenues to halt construction were exhausted, opponents resorted to non-violent direct action. Some protest “mass actions” have attracted more than 1,000 people from all walks of life and by the end of January, as bulldozers tore through the Coolbellup bushland under costly police protection, well over 100 had been arrested.

Proponents say the road is necessary to improve the safety and efficiency of freight traffic to and from the Port of Fremantle. Opponents point to freight alternatives that will avoid Roe 8’s destruction of Aboriginal heritage, endangered banksia woodland, and important wetlands. 

Critics have also decried the government’s lack of transparency and prudence in decision-making, and highlighted serious shortcomings in environmental policies and laws.

The state’s Labor opposition has promised to scrap the project if it wins government at the state election on March 11, yet to the shock and dismay of many, bulldozing continues.

Read the story on The Conversation by an Associate Professor of History at the  University of Western Australia,  Andrea Gaynor -  “Three ingredients for running a successful environmental campaign.”