The big debate was held in São Brás de Alportel on Jan 2nd with the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development, Luís Capoulas Santos and 200 delegates participating in a long-overdue and welcomed 'public discussion on forest reform.'
The government's new plans were presented by the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Forestry and Rural Development, Amandio Torres.
Luís Capoulas Santos said that the aim of this and all the sessions to be held throughout the country is to collect as much information as possible from interested and affected parties, with anything he likes being added as an amendment to the reform laws.
The minister was convinced that if his reforms are carried out with the public behind him, even if there is a change of government, the laws are unlikely to be messed with.
Capoulas Santos said that all of this is a "long-term process", but the sooner everyone has agreed what to do about Portugal’s forests, the sooner his reforestation plans can be put into practice.
The minister summarised his grand new scheme as one that will "enable owners, small ones in particular, to earn income, to create jobs in rural areas, to provide more raw materials to industries - which will also help us increase exports - and, at the same time, with a properly ordered management, to reduce as much as possible the risk of fires."
This is all covered in a set of legislative measures approved by the Council of Ministers on October 27, 2016, and it’s these that are open to public discussion in various parts of the country.
The key points include an amendment to the National Forest Fire Protection System, the creation of a national land bank for agricultural and forestry use and of a Land Mobilisation Fund, the establishment of a set of fiscal incentives for workers, the creation of a land ownership information system, the alteration of the forest intervention zone system, a recognition of forest management companies, the approval of a National Controlled Fire Programme, the installation and exploration by municipalities of new biomass plants, and overarching amendments to the laws covering forest management.
This is no easy task, the current tangle of laws are controlled by eight ministries, but the concern is that the minister is in little hurry to do anything useful, while time slips by.
Portugal is losing its forests at the highest rate in Europe. Poor fire prevention and frequent instances of arson increase the loss of an average of 100,000 hectares a year, each year for the past fifteen.
The Government seems keen though, and the task force was set up by the Prime Minister, António Costa, last August at a time when forest fires swept the Algarve and the talk of desertification of the country’s interior continued.
"The central issue is the professional management of the forest, because we do not have professional or non-professional management in many of the country's forest areas. That is to say, we have an abandoned heritage that does not generate wealth: that does not create jobs and makes forest fires more likely. What we want is to reduce the risk and this can only be achieved through professional management," believes the Minister of Agriculture.
One of the problems is finding out who owns what and then, in the Algarve at least, hand over forest management to those councils that are capable and interested. Whether this minister can draw together diverse strands of legislation and harmonise the commercial and ecological interests surrounding the nation's forests, remains to be seen.
