The former president and honorary life president of the animal rights protection group Anima Macau, Albano Martins, is seeking support to create an old ambition of his – an international animal shelter in Portugal.
The International Center for the Collection and Rehoming of Animals at Risk (‘CIAR’ based on the Portuguese acronym) – a tentative name provided to the Times by Martins – is to be managed by a new organization called ANIMA (Portugal). Martins stated he has been in contact with the current president of ANIMA Macau seeking authorization to use this name.
Martins noted that despite the similarity in name, the two organizations are independent and have no official ties. Further, Anima Macau will not share any costs or responsibilities under the project, to be hosted in Portugal’s Alentejo region.
Martins said the first steps to establish the center are still underway, and the project is far from completion.
For the time being, Martins is focusing his efforts on establishing the management organization as well as obtaining the necessary funds to set up the center.
According to Martins, the final project could occupy an area of between 10 to 50 hectares – another reason behind the choice of the Alentejo region, where Martins already owns some land that he will donate for the project.
He explained that contrary to the work of Anima in Macau, which focuses mostly on pets, the CIAR has a much broader spectrum of operation. The CIAR’s intended operation can include both domestic and wild animals. The idea is that the center can serve as a temporary shelter in case of different needs where the animals can be cared for before being relocated or placed back in the natural environment or protected habitats.
Such work would be done in cooperation with worldwide animal protection organizations, with which CIAR hopes to establish cooperative relationships.
This project has occupied Martins’ time since he left Macau around 18 months ago after more than 40 years of residing and working in the city, to return to Portugal.
He said this is his last project and one that he intends to work on for the rest of his life. Further to this, he anticipates the project needs to be carefully considered, planned, organized, led, and controlled so that “we don’t just have an ‘animals’ warehouse’ as we unfortunately have in many places and that is neither good for the animals nor for the animal rights protection cause.”
