The president of the Luso-American Development Foundation, Nuno Morais Sarmento, said on May 20 that Portugal can find “the key to its future” in the ocean and that the theme will be central to the foundation over the next few years.

Speaking at the opening of the Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD) ‘s 40th anniversary celebrations in Lisbon, ahead of the conference entitled “Breathing with the Ocean,” he said that the Ocean was at the origin of FLAD’s formation and that it is the “central vector of the next mandate as it is a differentiating element.”

For Nuno Morais Sarmento, the Ocean brings added value to Portugal, “in its positioning in Europe and the world and makes us bigger than our territory, it has 1.7 million square meters, 18 times the territory of Portugal”.

He also considered that this project would be the challenge of a decade and that it must involve public discussion, academia, and parliament but also be transversal to all areas, challenging us to reverse the logic: “It’s not about taking the maritime agenda to governance; it’s the other way around.”

“Portugal can find in the ocean the key to its future, because it brings added value and can make the country competitive,” he said, noting that FLAD has the ‘robustness and autonomy to meet this challenge’.

The central theme of the celebrations was the Ocean, and Nuno Morais Sarmento said that the aim was also to reach out to communities in the United States of America and the Azores.

The first speaker at the conference was the executive director of the Oceano Azul Foundation, Tiago Pitta e Cunha, who began by recalling Flad’s pioneering approach to the issue since Expo 98, organizing debates and conferences.

In addition to Tiago Pitta e Cunha, international experts Peter Heffernan and Mark J. Spalding were also present.

The meeting was attended by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the President of the Government of the Azores, José Manuel Bolieiro, and the Representative of the Republic in the Azores, Pedro Catarino.
The day ended at the Ajuda National Palace with a concert inspired by Paul Auster’s “City of Glass” trilogy.

From Lusa Reports and the FLAD Facebook page