Minas de antimónio e ouro do concelho de Gondomar: uma oportunidade de turismo de património industrial

Abstract

In recent decades, industrial heritage tourism has grown significantly and is an expanding economic activity. In Europe, the first initiatives emerged in the 1980s in the United Kingdom and Germany, with the musealization of industrial spaces. In Portugal, this type of initiative began to have a huge impact at the end of the 20th century, largely due to deindustrialization, responsible for the closure and relocation of many factories, leading to the disappearance of much of this heritage. In the Extractive Industry, there are still few cases of musealization of deactivated mining heritage. In the European context, there are already some projects around the recovery of mining heritage, and in Portugal the process for inventorying and classifying this heritage is still in the development phase, with a long way to go in safeguarding these places. The case under study highlights the cultural and tourist potential that the antimony (Sb) and gold mines of Gondomar have in a region with specific geographical and geological characteristics that allowed the exploration of a resource that proved to be important, standing out at a national level. Sb exploration in this region had a period of greater activity at the end of the 19th century with the creation of several mining companies and brought an important development throughout the region, having its closure disastrous consequences on the population and territory. The study carried out on Sb exploration confirms the idea that this sector had a cyclical nature and depended on sudden fluctuations in metal prices, leading to phases of rapid development and expansion, followed by the closure and abandonment of mines. Currently, what remains of most of the Sb mines are ruins surrounded by dense vegetation, making these industrial units, which in other times constituted a great wealth, are now completely abandoned and forgotten. Aware of the richness of this industrial and mining heritage, it is intended to draw up a proposal for the creation of an Interpretive Center that will allow portraying the different stages of mining exploration in the municipality of Gondomar. This project would be an essential complement to the thematic trails already developed by Parque das Serras do Porto and which would rescue spaces and vestiges associated with the old mines, enhancing the heritage and memory of these communities, which were once very dependent on these mining operations.