I'm going to be a little skeptic and say that part of the article reads like an ad. Cork exploration is certantly less destructive than the high intensity water

I'm going to be a little skeptic and say that part of the article reads like an ad. Cork exploration is certantly less destructive than the high intensity water hungry olive and almond farms, the green houses in protected areas or the high end condos in the dunes that have been showing up through Alentejo. Maybe it's even the best balance we can get between some need for profitability and vaguely natural land, but I have very strong doubts about some of the language used in the article. Some examples: "This traditional type of management is not disruptive to biodiversity, which has adapted and endures because of it. The wild species that inhabit these areas no longer have alternatives, and so will be at risk if the Montado land-use is changed." Alentejo as seen the influence of man in transforming the landscape for thousands of years. This type of management was likely very disruptive. biodiversity adapted and the one that didn't is gone. Most of the times we can't even see the problem simply because the bodies of the extinct species decomposed and left no trace. Wolves are gone, vultures are gone, wild boars are a problem due to the lack of natural predators and most land is fenced which is a huge problem to any kind of bigger wild life that needs to move around. From what I've learned cork trees were heavily trimmed during the fifties due to the need for wood making them a lot smaller than they could be and so storing a lot less carbon. So things are very disruptive but sometimes it's just not in a time scale we can notice, or feel and responsability for it. "Material scientists in Amorim's iCork lab are also experimenting by combining cork with rubber and bio-based or biodegradable polymers to develop other new uses including injection moulding." So it's an experiment in making composites of cork and plastic that will probably be impossible to recycle and will take a long take to degrade in realistic conditions. Not saying that those material aren't needed I just really think this wording is trying to deceive people into thinking this is something it's not.