A national initiative for ecological restoration, D-EVOLUÇÃO, promoted by WWF Portugal with the main support of Lidl Portugal and in technical-scientific partnership with MARDIVE, marks a new milestone in the preservation of marine biodiversity in the Tagus Estuary: the installation and monitoring of nine underwater shelters adapted from old Lidl shopping carts, as announced in a press release.
According to the same source, the Trafaria waterfront hosts one of the most relevant and densely recorded populations in Portugal, housing the common seahorse (Hippocampus hippocampus) and the long-snouted seahorse (Hippocampus guttulatus).
To address the scarcity of natural habitats and anticipating the removal of debris accumulated there, which has been used as attachment points for seahorses, WWF Portugal and Lidl Portugal joined nature conservation with the circular economy. Through the creation of these new shelters, the project also promotes the development of biological communities, the stabilization of sandy seabeds, and the strengthening of the ecological resilience of one of Europe’s most important wetlands.
Its location was also validated with local fishermen, ensuring that the conservation of marine biodiversity goes hand in hand with fishing activity.
The Lidl Portugal-financed portion of the project covers a total area of intervention and monitoring of about 16 hectares in the Tagus Estuary, translating into funding of 90 thousand euros. This investment rested on a participatory model that directly involved the retail chain’s customer community, through the purchase of the turtle solidarity shopping bag – produced with recycled plastic recovered from coastal fringes and that was available in the chain’s stores for €1, with half of the value reverting to WWF Portugal’s ecological restoration projects in the country.
Before being sunk, the shopping carts were adapted, through the removal of all plastic elements, the creation of attachment points, the increase of the shelter’s internal surface area for the seahorses, and the treatment to prevent oxidation, to perform their new function in an environmentally responsible manner.
Vanessa Romeu, Head of Corporate Affairs of Lidl Portugal, highlights the relevance of this intervention: “At Lidl Portugal, we believe that protecting biodiversity requires ambition, innovation and tangible actions. Seeing our network’s old shopping carts, at the end of their life cycle, transformed into shelters where the Tejo seahorses can today protect themselves and thrive, is the perfect translation of how the circular economy can directly serve nature conservation.”
For Angela Morgado, Executive Director of WWF Portugal, “D-EVOLUÇÃO was born from the conviction that restoring nature requires strong alliances between civil society organizations, companies, public institutions, the scientific community and citizens. Lidl Portugal’s commitment has been fundamental to turning this vision into concrete action, enabling interventions that generate real benefits for ecosystems and for the communities that depend on them. This is a collective effort that also counts on the contribution of more companies, partners and individual donors. Only through this broader mobilization can we give the scale and continuity required for the ecological restoration that the country needs.”
