In 2014 the Mayors of Gondomar, Paredes and Valongo committed themselves with the Green Lung Project, having formed an intermunicipal team, bringing together officers of different skills, and having subsequently invited landscape architect Teresa Andresen for the overall coordination of the team.

The project encompasses a set of mountains around the city of Porto, towards NW/SE (Santa Justa, Pias, Casti(n)Çal, Flores, Santa Iria and Banjas), which integrate the Anticline of Valongo, bringing together some of the oldest geological formations in Portugal, about 540 million years old.

Entities, associations and community have always stated their interest in the preservation of these mountains. The territory is already enjoyed by many people coming from or visiting the several AMP municipalities.

The implementation of common dynamics to sustainably manage and value the mountains was a key strategic goal for the three municipalities, engaged in an effective sharing of interests, knowledge and resources.

One of the initiatives of the Green Lung Cooperation Agreement signed in June 2015 by the Municipalities of Gondomar, Paredes and Valongo, was the creation of the Parque das Serras do Porto (Porto Mountains Park), for the protection and valuing of this territory offering about 5 700 hectares of high economic, cultural and environmental potential.

The Associação de Municípios Parque das Serras do Porto  (Porto Mountains Park Municipalities’ Association) was constituted on 18 April 2016, in the São Pedro da Cova’s Mining Museum, in Gondomar.

This Park will be managed by the Municipalities of Gondomar, Paredes and Valongo and its main objectives are:

• The conservation of biodiversity elements in a context of landscape valuing.

• The maintenance or restoration of landscape patterns and their underlying ecological processes, promoting traditional land use practices, construction methods and social and cultural manifestations.

• The conservation and valuing of geological and cultural heritage.

• The investment on initiatives capable of generating benefits for local communities, based on products or the provision of services.

The Parque das Serras do Porto, as a green lung of the Porto Metropolitan Area, also aims to promote the potential of this whole region that is far from being achieved.

This is a generational project, which will be developed over decades and that foresees the requalification of area with about 6,000 hectares, but already laying the foundations for the creation of a unit for the region.

The President of the Portuguese Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, honoured the municipalities of Gondomar, Paredes and Valongo granting the Parque das Serras do Porto the High Sponsorship of the Presidency of the Republic, a mark and a contribution from the President of the Republic for the achievement of ideas that consider Portugal’s future a basic and primordial element.