Local organizations and communities mobilized in different ways against pollution in the Alviela River: not just denouncing pollution, they also proposed ways of ameliorating it, and acted and protested to make them possible. The “Anti-Pollution Commission of Alviela,” created in 1957, was one of the first public forums for discussion and action on pollution in Portugal. Later, in 2009, the Commission for the Defense of Alviela River brought together 40 entities (riverside municipalities and parishes, parliament deputies and NGOs) with the aim of deciding on and implementing actions.
