A pilot project organised by Rewilding Portugal and funded by Turismo de Portugal aims to transform key villages in the region into gateways for nature tourism in the Greater Côa Valley. On Monday, Vilar Maior, in Sabugal, took a historic step by officially becoming the first Rewilding Village in the Greater Côa Valley, following the signing of a cooperation agreement between Rewilding Portugal, the Municipality of Sabugal, the Union of Parishes of Aldeia da Ribeira, Vilar Maior and Badamalos, and the Muralhas de Vilar Maior Association.

A river is not merely a watercourse. It is a living, constantly changing system that connects landscapes, transports sediment, sustains biodiversity and has shaped the human cultures living around it for thousands of years. To truly fulfil this role in a functional way, a river must be free. In Portugal, the vast majority of rivers are fragmented by artificial barriers that disrupt this continuity. The River Côa is a prime example of this reality, but also a symbol of hope for its restoration.

The new report is the first systematic assessment of whether Portugal should introduce its own legal framework to secure long-term conservation commitments on private land. This model is inspired by nature conservation instruments that are now emerging across Europe.

In the natural world, the balance of a landscape rarely depends on a single species, even when that species fulfils similar functions. On the contrary, it arises from diversity, interaction and time. It is precisely this principle that lies at the heart of one of the main objectives of rewilding in Portugal: the return of mixed herds of large herbivores living in a semi-wild state.

After Helena and Cantinho Café, the Those Who Stay series takes us now to the Serra da Malcata, one of the quietest corners of the Greater Côa Valley. It is here that Tiago guides forest bathing, a practice born in Japan, shinrin-yoku, which comes down to something as simple as it is rare. Being in the forest with all your senses open, without haste and without a destination.

The two Rewilding Officers from Rewilding Portugal, who are involved in beaver monitoring and were responsible for last year’s discovery, tell us first-hand what this process was like and what the next steps are for continuing to monitor this progress in the near future.

We bring this series to a close with the most controversial of the five species: the brown bear. Not because it is dangerous – it is, in fact, one of the large European mammals with which it is easiest to coexist – but because it is large, because it is a predator, and because its absence from Portugal seems, at first glance, to be permanent. It is not.

There is a bird that no longer flies over the Portuguese mountains – and which, of all the species that have disappeared, is perhaps the most telling example of what it means to lose a scavenger: the Bearded Vulture.

Vale Carapito rewilding area, in the municipality of Sabugal, has been recognised as a Private Protected Area (APP), making it only the fifth area in Portugal to be granted this conservation status. The decision marks a milestone for privately-led nature conservation in the country and for the development of rewilding as a tool for ecological restoration.

For thirty years, Cantinho has opened its doors on one of the most beautiful hillsides in Castelo Rodrigo. It was born in 1995, just as the village was joining the network of the first ten Historic Villages and living through a whirl of building work, new faces and hope for the future. It grew out of a wish by Helena Sousa’s parents, with an idea that was simple and rare for its time: to create a space ready to welcome those arriving from elsewhere, without ever ceasing to be a home for those who lived here.

In 2001, Helena and her husband, João, took the project on by themselves. They made it into far more than the village café. A house of different flavours, of craft beer when almost no one in the Interior was talking about it, of causes, of people. In 2025, after some difficult months, Helena reopened Cantinho on her own and reinvented it from top to bottom. This is the conversation we had with her.