ADPM - Associação de Defesa do Património de Mértola

ADPM was founded in 1980, its main goal based on the conciliation between natural resources preservation and socio-economic development as a strategy for rural areas sustainable future. This implies a multiple sectors activity based approach. To fulfill this need, it was crucial to build a multi-disciplinary team (about 40 technicians), pushing together both collective purposes and project, mostly focusing on working to and with the local communities.

ADPM main intervention areas: Local development; Rural extension; Environmental education for citizenship; Education and adults training; Promotion of environmental, cultural and scientific tourism; Social intervention; International cooperation; Services provision.

ADPM offices: Extension and Rural Environment; Education and Training; Social intervention;
Transnational Cooperation; Local Development; Free intervention.

In 1988, ADPM was recognized, by the Portuguese Government, as a Public Interest Entity, and in 2003, ADPM was recognized by the Portuguese Foreign Affairs Ministry as a Non Governmental Organization for Development and since then ADPM as started to work in several African Countries, particularly in countries that speak Portuguese (as Mozambique, Cape Verde and S. Tomé), but also in the North of Africa, in Morocco, in education, training, health, creation of associations, recovery of assets.

Co-operation in international networks: APDM is Europe Direct Centers member, Knowledge Resource Centers member, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) permanent member, and is being registered in PADOR – Europe – Aid (Potential Data On-Line Registration).

ADPM belongs also to several national associations and confederations bodies, such as NGDO´s Platform or the Confederation of Associations for the Environment Defense.

ADPM is a Portuguese state Certified Training Institute since 1996; in sequence, was, in 2006/2007, co-coordinator of a Regional and Local Development Master in Economic Sciences, entirely carried out in Mértola, under Algarve University pedagogical responsibility.

In terms of knowledge production, ADPM has participated in several research projects , including diagnostic and assessment studies, of which we highlight ForClimadapt project (European project, which aimed to develop and analyze pilot experiments to study possible adaptation measures against climate change on forest ecosystems); Mediterranean Mosaics - Model Resilience of Mediterranean Ecosystems (whose goal was participation in proposals preparation for ecosystems restoration - the scale of the basin, making them more resilient to climate change ); Rehabilitation of Water Lines Mediterranean (under which cartographic maps and reports inventory were produced); RUMUS (which implementation allowed detailed characterization of pastures and their inventory); VALLIA - Recovery of Iberian Lynx Habitat in Alentejo (project that had Spanish partnership and examined the lynx habitat recovery).

Currently, ADPM is developing European Project CAPIVAL - Capitalizing on Validpack: going Europe wide - (LLP – Transversal Programme, KA4 Dissemination and exploitation of results Project No.: 511883-2010-LLP-RO-KA4-KA4MP), that wants to test, adapt and validate a technical and pedagogical skills framework for adults educators – www.capival.eu).

Since 2003, based on the major development goals for the millennium, ADPM has developed several initiatives for Education for Development.

During the last 10 years, ADPM has become an active organization in sports field, especially through the development of several projects and activities that have children’s groups and senior people as targets, aiming to promote personal and social integration, healthy life styles and active ageing.