The Ministry of Agriculture is currently working to "make available Proder funds for post-fire emergency actions, which needs to be done now, very soon" to start dealing with agricultural and forestry damage resulting from the fires that burned 26 thousand hectares of Serra do caldeirão, last July.
On the sidelines of a visit to Refúgio Aboim Ascensão, the minister of Agriculture Assunção Cristas assured this Friday that this support is to arrive in the short term and that “the projects and the detection of priority areas are already being carried out”.
On the other hand, he recalled that the European Interior Development Program Proder has "100 million euros for the forest and a lower execution rate in this area than in others", funds that can be channeled into reforestation.
The minister of Agriculture, Sea, Environment and Spatial Planning met this Friday with technicians from the Regional Directorate of Agriculture and assured that the work to assess the damage "is very advanced" and by the end of August it will be ready the report of the commission that was created to carry out this survey.
Still, Assunção Cristas doesn't want to advance values, for now. After this emergency intervention phase, the next phase of "recovery of productive capacity" will take place. “Here there is a distinction between agriculture and forestry. The first may be more immediate, while the forest needs stabilization and it will only be a year from now that it will be possible to identify exactly what can be done and where», he explained.
Land Exchange can advance in the burning area of the Caldeirão
«However, I have said that this is an area where we have a relevant forest association, where we have a pilot registration project, both in Tavira and in São Brás de Alportel. We expect, as part of the work that the Government is developing, to have a pilot zone here to test a series of solutions, namely those provided for in the new Land Exchange law, which is in Parliament and which I hope in September will be able to fact, to be approved”, said Assunção Cristas.
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