The forest maintenance row continues between the country’s mayors and the government. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Eduardo Cabrita, has assured municipalities that they will be reimbursed for ‘almost everything’ they spend cleaning forests on private land.The new forest laws state that land must be cleared in the zones around villages and houses in rural areas, before the next fire season.
"The first responsibility lies with the owners," said Eduardo Cabrita, who admits that not all land can be cleared in year one, despite this being part of the government’s regulations.
"I would say that this is an area of work that Portuguese society demands of us. The memory of last year’s 112 dead requires us to do everything, everything which is possible and at the moment much more is being done,” says the minister of Internal Administration.
The row is about who pays for this work. Councils are to clear private land, under the new laws, and get the costs reimbursed by the owners, if they can find them.
There are new deadlines and penalties if councils fail to ensure the cleaning of the areas around houses, factories and urbanisations.
The national association of municipalities already has stated that it considers the May 31st deadline "unenforceable" and several municipalities have stated that they do not have the funds or equipment to carry out the task.
At the centre of the discussion lies a provision that has been law since 2006, but has been beefed up in reaction to last summer’s devastating fires and loss of life.
In the new 2018 law, if owners of land surrounding isolated houses, villages and factories etc do not clear scrub to 50 or 100 metres, varying by category of building, by 15 March, local authorities will have to do the work and attempt to get reimbursement from landowners. If they do not, the Government will cut 20% of the councils’ annual grant.
The Government says it has made it easy for councils, they can borrow the money from a special 50 million euro fund, and not have to bother with getting quotes from multiple contractors - a direct appointment system will be OK, whatever the estimated cost.
Some councils will not wish to start borrowing money from the State, having spent years paying-off previous loans.
Many owners have not registered their land, a way of avoiding council taxes, despite earning money from growing trees for the pulp industry. Other owners will not have the money to clear their land themselves or money to repay the council for doing the work.
Eduardo Cabrita now says the councils will only have to repay the State, after being repaid by the landowners. This will increase council borrowings if work is done and no owner is found.
If owners are incapable of funding the work themselves, leaving it up to the council’s contractors, their land may be seized and auctioned off to pay for the scrub clearance work.
