Background Pig breeding represents an important economic activity in some Portuguese municipalities, although it is also one of the main sources of contamination for the municipality. This has led to complaints against the Municipal Authorities as regards odour and contamination of the water and soil. Aware of this problem, in 1999 the Municipal Authorities carried out an Environmental Diagnosis of the sector. The work carried out brought to light some relevant questions to be solved in order to minimise the sector’s environmental impact and contribute to improving the quality of the municipality’s environment: •The need to adapt most of the farms to meet current environmental standards, as around 60% of the establishments had more or less serious problems in their effluent treatment systems. •The need for better communication between the various public bodies involved in the sector. •The need to supervise and monitor the farms and their respective systems on a regular basis. •The need to punish serious contraventions in water and soil contamination, in accordance with current legislation. The situation at EU level is diverse, mainly due to the positioning of each country (more/less restrictive, more/less inspections, level of legislation produced, etc.). However, there is a lot of EU legislation which has an impact on the pig farm sector. In the environmental field the Directives related to the Water Framework, the Conservation of Natural Habitats and Wild Fauna and Flora, the Protection of Waters Against Pollution Caused by Nitrates from Agricultural Sources, the Environmental Impact Assessment, the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control, the Protection of the Environment and in particular of the Soil when Sewage Sludge is Used in Agriculture and the Pollution Caused by Certain Dangerous Substances Discharges into the Aquatic Environment of the Community. In the breeding production field and its interaction with the environment, the Directives related to Laying Down Minimum Standards for the Protection of Pigs and the Identification and Registration of Animals are relevant. In Portugal, the most up-to-date information about the situation of pig farming is organized in a document published in 2002, named “Pollution and Quality of the Water”, that supports the Water National Plan. The main conclusions are: •The pig farming sector is one of the main sources of water pollution due to its pollutant liquid effluents and absence of treatment; •The regions where this situation is more complex are the south (Alentejo and Algarve) and a sub-area in the Lisbon and Tejo Valley Region. •There is a legislation gap in this area. It is necessary to transpose some EU legislation, besides the necessity to promote national and local regulations. •The control and inspections of the discharges must be improved. Objectives The project's objectives were as follows: •The development and implementation of a set of instruments and tools (regulatory, economic, monitoring and information management) to make the integration of environmental aspects in authorising, managing and operating pig farming at the local level possible in such a way as to reduce their impact on natural resources (soil, water and air). •To study the viability of applying a composting process as a means of treating and making use of the solid part of waste produced in the municipality, along with green waste and the solid part of urban waste. •The design and implementation of a set of best practices for the treatment of solid and liquid wastes from pig farms, as well as the adaptation of some farms to the instruments proposed by the project. Results The project achieved the main objectives proposed and the expected results. In certain ways, the project even surpassed some of the initial expectations, namely in terms of the quality and importance of the tools developed and due to the intensive and interested participation of the pig farmers in the process. This project also had an important innovative character, namely through the management tools that were developed and that are being applied for the very first time at national level, and on the other hand, in the wide-ranging revision of the state of the art and regulations that exist at European and international levels. The expected benefits that this project will allow are: •Medium and long-term protection of underground water and even possibly leading to an improvement in its current quality due to the reduction in contaminating material from pig farms. This is a particularly relevant benefit as underground water is the only source of public supply because of the adverse meteorological conditions in this region during the summer. •There is an improvement to the urban environment with particular relevance to noise levels and odours in the residential areas close to which pig farms are currently to be found. •The re-use and recycling of material with activities such as composting. •Reduction in the use of resources and the minimisation of waste generation through the use of incentives created by environmental management schemes that provide a series of long-term benefits for the environment. What may be particularly important is the efficient use of water by pig farms, allowing these to make savings in water consumption and, at the same time, to reduce the production and discharge of wastewater, thereby contributing to a reduction in treatment costs. •Indirect benefits from the improvement to the environmental quality of the two locations proposed to form part of the Red Natura 2000 (Cabrela and Monfurado) and which occupy around 1/3 of the Municipality’s surface area. The type of tools and instruments developed (as well as the theoretical and technical knowledge on which they are based) are of such a generic nature that they have great potential for transferability and reproduction in other areas with only small adaptations to local conditions. If we take into account the fact that the tools and instruments developed constitute the result of a project in which the farmers and their most important national body (FPAS) have been widely consulted, the transferability of the project’s results may be even greater, as the opinions of these participants necessarily reflect those of all farmers nationwide. The main tools/instruments are: Local Pig-Farming Regulation, Voluntary Local Environmental Certification Scheme, Local Economic Incentive Scheme and Multi-user Information Management System. The problems tackled by this project are similar to those to be found in other Portuguese regions in which the pig-farming sector is representative. In some of these regions where Local Agenda 21 is being implemented, the situation is being tackled as part of this agenda. As the developed tools are quite innovative with regard to their scope of application, their demonstration character should be considered as a case for future reproduction in other European countries and other economic sectors that create problems at local levels. Recent trends in various Member States towards the minimizing of intensive activities, call for the possible application of the tools that have been developed. One can consider Spain among these with its Extremadura and Andalucia regions (both bordering on the project’s area) as the most promising areas for reproducing the project.