Portugal will begin cutting down 1.3 million trees this month to make way for Europe’s largest human-made lake. The government says the 62,000-acre, 50-mile-long lake will provide water for arid fields, as well as hydropower and 20,000 jobs — some at golf courses built for tourists — for what is now a poor region of the country. But Jose Paulo Martins of the environmental group Quercus says the water project “is a deliberate, planned disaster.” Several archeological sites and the habitat of some rare birds will be flooded by the lake, although the government says it will relocate the colonies of threatened bats.
