LIFE Ilhas Barreira — Predator Removal & Seabird Recovery on Ria Formosa's Barrier Islands (Portugal)

The Ria Formosa lagoon's barrier islands (Culatra, Armona, Tavira, Cabanas, Deserta) and the Ancão and Cacela peninsulas, in Portugal's Algarve, shelter Iberia's largest Audouin's Gull colony and important Little Tern nesting beaches, but predation by feral cats, invasive plants and human disturbance threatened breeding success.

From 2019 to 2025, the EU LIFE-funded project "LIFE Ilhas Barreira" (LIFE18 NAT/PT/000927), coordinated by SPEA with ICNF, Animaris, RIAS/Aldeia, CCMAR-UAlg and CIMA-UAlg, and co-funded by Portugal's Fundo Ambiental, removed all feral cats from Ilha Deserta, cleared invasive Acacia, century plant and Hottentot fig from 1.6 hectares of grey dune habitat, fenced and signposted Little Tern nesting beaches, and modernised the RIAS wildlife-rehabilitation centre.

Audouin's Gull nests rose from roughly 2,500 in 2019 to over 7,000 by 2024, with the colony naturally spreading from Deserta to Culatra, reducing the risk of a single-site catastrophe. Between 2019 and 2024 the RIAS centre treated 7,562 injured or oiled seabirds and released 3,208 back to the wild, and the project's environmental-education programme reached 6,807 schoolchildren across the Algarve.

The project concluded in 2025; sustaining predator-free status on a chain of low sandy barrier islands crossed daily by boat traffic and reshaped by storms will require ongoing biosecurity funding beyond the LIFE grant period, and public sources do not disclose the project's total budget.

Read the full analysis: https://www.europeandissemination.eu/article/safeguarding-one-of-the-algarves-protective-barriers/23302