Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentina

The Southwest Alentejo and Vicentine Coast Natural Park was created in 1995 and protects some 1,310 km² along about a hundred and ten kilometres of Atlantic coast, from Sines to Burgau, in south-western Portugal. It is regarded as one of the best-preserved stretches of coast in continental Europe.

The landscape is one of schist and limestone cliffs beaten by a constant Atlantic swell, beaches set between headlands, dunes, lagoons and river valleys descending to the sea. The vegetation, adapted to the salt wind, includes numerous endemics of the south-western Iberian peninsula and rock communities of great botanical interest.

Its most cited faunal singularity is the nesting of the white stork on the pinnacles and ledges of the sea cliffs, above the ocean itself: it is the only population in the world that breeds in a strictly coastal, rocky setting, rather than in trees, towers or on roofs. The coast is also a migration corridor for raptors and seabirds, and the otter lives in the park's rivers. The pressure of intensive greenhouse agriculture immediately around it and tourist development are its main threats.