Portugal: Cork

Portugal is home to the largest cork-oak forests in the world, found in the southern (Algarve) and south-central (Alentejo) parts of the country. Environmentalists support cork production. Speaking for cork producers from throughout the Mediterranean, Capoulas Santos echoed environmentalists' warnings that a decline in demand for cork would be calamitous for the region's arid areas as well as spell disaster for rare wildlife. Local farmers will only continue to practice the traditional system of cork farming as long as it is economically viable, 'he said. 'The cork oak forests make up an ecosystem of unparalleled biological richness.’ Helena Freitas, president of LPN, the country's oldest conservation group, added: 'the cork oak trees preserve the region's thin soils and scarce groundwater. Without them, the area will quickly become a desert and virtually uninhabitable for humans. It would also spell the end for the Iberian Lynx, which lives in many of Spain and Portugal's cork forests, and which has been declared the world's most endangered big cat. ' 'The cork oak forests of Portugal are Europe's Amazon forests,' said Jorge Paiva, a botanist at Coimbra University. 'They support the greatest bio-diversity anywhere in Europe.' Dolores Hedo, of the Spanish Ornithological Society SEO, added: 'The cork oak forests are the biggest wilderness woodlands left in Europe.' (Source: Front Page Online)

Portugal has 45 companies that produce cork products; some 30 million corks per day! Lafitte is such a company, producing 400 million cork-stoppers per year for wineries around the world. The cork is stored in long piles at the bottom of the photo.

Look at photos of cork production.

The cork factory on the last photo is located in Portalegre in the Alentejo region.

For more information about cork production, read:

1) Register Guard about the distinctive landscape of cork production, the harvesting techniques, and the threat of plastic wine stoppers.

2) The cork industry in Portugal, by J. L. CALHEIROS E MENESES, President of Junta Nacional da Cortiça, Portugal, discusses the agricultural trends of cork production and export.

3) A short article: an excellent discussion of the geography of cork.

Go to wine production.