(I should warn you: this is not my typical posting stile, but the current situation of Portuguese natural parks made me feel that something had to be written)Personally I never had serious issues when photographing in Portuguese Natural Parks, but the situations described in the beginning of the post are common. Over the time the Portuguese authority for the management and conservation of natural areas (ICNB - Instituto da Conservacao da Natureza e Biodiversidade) has taken an arrogant attitude towards nature photographers, by limiting their activities while refusing to establish an open dialog policy that would probably benefit everybody.
The situation reached an insane level when ICNB published a price table that targets some activities that take place in natural areas. The table is not only unclear about what a "photo shooting session" is but also imposes prices that are impossible even for professional photographers to withstand… This means that a blind and straight forward application of such a table would make if impossible for someone to enjoy the beauty of Portuguese Natural parks through photography.
Responding to this situation a group of Portuguese photographers sent a letter to ICNB by March 16'th 2009, you can download the English version of the letter here.
Today, 22'nd of April 2009, Earth Day, the letter still did not have any answer…
The image in this post was created back in 2004 in "Praia da Ursa" a part of the "Sintra/Cascais Natural Park"… Living less than 50km from this place, I can't enumerate the number of times I've been there… Although I don't feel I'm doing anything wrong whenever I go there it seams I'm breaking the law whenever I do…
Don't get me wrong I don't mind paying a fair fee for visiting natural areas, specially if I feel that my money will be used in the conservation of the area… I just feel that for this case the fee is unfair and unclear and so is the purpose this money will serve…
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