Portuguese environment minister praises forest, anti-fire investments

Environment and Climate Action Minister Duarte Cordeiro highlighted the now more than €450 million ongoing investments in the forest area, including fire prevention, at a regular hearing in the parliamentary committee on agriculture and fisheries Wednesday.

As part of the current Rural Development Program (PDR2020), three notices are open to investment support measures worth €40 million, and later this month, it is planned to open new notices for more than €20 million, said Cordeiro.

Speaking about the EU’s Strategic Plan of the Common Agricultural Policy (PEPAC), the minister said that in the second half of the year, the regulation of forest investment interventions begins, and then it is expected to launch notices for applications from the start of 2024.

“The amount of support for investment measures in forest production amounts to €274.5 million,” he said. “In addition to this amount, there are also other areas of complementary support for the value chain, such as the transformation of agricultural and forestry products in the bioeconomy, which total €150.7 million,” he added.

Cordeiro also said that PEPAC provides for the possibility of granting annual bonuses for maintenance actions and active forest management for 20 years for hardwood stands and for a period of 15 years for other species. PEPAC also contemplates strengthening the role of the Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests (ICNF) in the analysis and monitoring of investment projects, he added.

Focus on prevention

Regarding forest fire prevention measures, Cordeiro recalled that since October, about 8,000 hectares of fuel management strips have already been cleared and that he expects another 11,000 hectares to be added later this year. Since 2018, “more than 50% of the primary network planned in priority territories has already been installed,” he added.

“But if we want a more resilient forest, providing environmental services, with economic value, we have to transform it,” he went on. “We cannot have monoculture forest plantations occupying vast areas of our territory, without interruptions and without mosaics.”

In this regard, he recalled the Landscape Transformation Programme, which includes plans to reorganise and manage the landscape, under which the programme for the Monchique range in the Algarve has been approved, while government approval is still pending for the Marão/Alvão/Falperra, Malcata and Baixo Sabor regions.

Cordeiro also spoke of the Village Condominiums project that plans to have the vegetation cleared to create a fire protection area, noting that its goal for 2025 has already been almost achieved.

“At the start of May, we received applications for the notice of €20 million to intervene in 473 villages, which add to the 200 already approved in previous applications and make a total already exceeding 600 village condominiums, so very close to the target of 800 villages foreseen in the RRP [Recovery and Resilience Plan for spending post-pandemic EU recovery funds] by 2025,” he said.

Cordeiro also said that 70 Integrated Landscape Management Areas (AIGP) – the third strand of the Landscape Management Programme – had been constituted in the areas most affected by the fires.

In his initial comments in the parliamentary committee, the minister recalled that the legislation on a voluntary carbon market is being completed, with 70 contributions received in public consultation, but that it had been the object of a negative written opinion from the National Council for the Environment and Sustainable Development (CNADS).

He said that the government would improve the legislation and that it plans to publish the new version this summer, stressing that the CNADS opinion will not in itself prevent the government from moving forward, although he said that the government was seeking a “rapprochement” with the body.

(Fenando Peixeiro, Edited by Cristina Cardoso| Lusa.pt)