Plano de Investimentos prevê 102ME para a Via Navegável do Douro

Investment Plan foresees 102ME for the Douro Waterway

The investment of 102 million euros, to be applied between 2021 and 2030, aims, according to the PNI, “to create conditions for the Via Navegável do Douro to be a road of excellence, fluid and light, inducing value creation and development sustainable, integrated in the Logistics and Tourism Network of the Atlantic façade of the Iberian Peninsula ”.

The project aims to “improve navigability, safety and operational performance conditions by implementing phase three of the Douro 2020 Waterway - Douro's Inland Waterway 2020, which includes signaling upstream from the estuary, the rehabilitation of the five locks and the waiting pier and the correction of the navigable channel of the Douro river in the Cotas-Valeira and Saião-Pocinho sections.

According to the PNI, it is also intended to “develop port infrastructures through the rehabilitation of berths and the creation of new support structures for the movement of passengers, goods and other resources, in order to respond to the growing movement of passengers and the potential growth in the movement of goods ”.

“Serious constraints on accessibility and lack of responsiveness to tourists have been resolved,” says Ricardo Magalhães, but recalling the still “long way to go”, in order to take better advantage of the Douro's navigability.

Although tourism has increased in the region, the official does not believe in a massification of the Douro as a tourist destination, since everything has been done "in order to win tourists and foreign investors with the necessary clairvoyance of a sustainable destination."

“We are and will be in a classified landscape, intact and fragile in its genesis, authentic and genuine, requiring special planning and management care. This landscape reflects a unique relationship between man and nature. It's a genius thing and it won't change, ”he says.

After the controversy surrounding the Foz Tua dam, whose construction threatened UNESCO classification, Ricardo Magalhães believes there is still a “place for new projects” in the Douro, as long as they “ensure the authenticity and balance of the Alto Douro Wine Region”. "

According to the CCDR-N vice-president, “neither the UNESCO classification is concerned nor the preservation of the landscape is a reason to restrict future investments”, namely those that promote the “indispensable revitalization of cities and towns” in a territory. that “it is not only intended to be attractive to visitors or investors”, but “demonstrates the ability to fix young people”.

For the coming years, the official defends the need to “take advantage of a communication of World Heritage goods” and to continue to invest in the internationalization of the Douro World Heritage brand.

“It is intended an active role in the international network of wine regions bearing the UNESCO label,” says Ricardo Magalhães, who in the long term, the development of the territory should also include “an ever closer proximity between the University of Trás -os-Montes and the companies of the region ”.

It was on 14 December 2001 that the Alto Douro Vinhateiro (ADV) was included in the list of World Heritage of Humanity, in the category of Evolutionary and Living Cultural Landscape.

The classified area comprises 24,600 hectares, about one tenth of the total of the Douro Demarcated Region, with its buffer zone an area of 225,400 hectares, and covers 13 municipalities.

Source: Jornal DN