Proder opened an extraordinary credit line of 4 million euros to support emergency post-fire stabilization actions that are needed in Serra do Caldeirão. These funds are intended for projects to treat slopes, watercourses and paths, according to a report by the Ministry of Agriculture's Directorate for the Defense of the Forest (Dudef). Sul Informação had access.
Applications run from September 10th to October 31st and any person, natural or legal, can submit projects. Contribution levels can range from 50 to 100 percent “depending on the type of beneficiary”, reads the Dudef report.
This document, despite having been produced a few days after the fires, outlines the measures that will need to be implemented and gives a first estimate of the money to be invested. In the report, the budget was estimated at 3 million and 770 thousand euros, in the three areas. Value that will have served as a reference to the tender now launched, which appears at the same time as the final report, produced by the regional and national services of the Ministry of Agriculture, should be presented to Minister Assunção Cristas.
The mayor of São Brás de Alportel António Eusébio told our newspaper that he was aware of this report, although it has not yet reached his hands. According to the mayor, it was on this preliminary survey that he and his counterpart in Tavira were based when they spoke of tens of millions of euros in damages.
“In relation to the stabilization measures, I remember that the needs of São Brás were around two million euros, a figure that should be similar in Tavira”, said António Eusébio. The Sambrasense mayor has been warning, since the beginning, that it is essential to carry out these interventions before the first big rains.
An opinion that Dudef's technicians support in their report. One of the great risks that can arise from the fires that destroyed about 26 thousand hectares of forest and scrub in São Brás and Tavira, in July, is the contamination of water lines, namely those for human consumption, due to runoff from the burned slopes.
"The fact that the Odeleite reservoir is the source of the public water supply in the Eastern Algarve requires extra attention in this type of action [cleaning the hydrographic network], namely, and as a way of safeguarding the source of water, favoring adoption of torrential correction measures in the respective bay”, the report reads.
The reporters add that the most pressing actions are the cleaning of water lines and the consolidation of slopes, in order to avoid land subsidence, due to the absence of vegetation cover. The “sowing of land cover species” projects is, by the way, the item with the largest budget foreseen in the report, around a third of the total value foreseen.
Also according to the document, support for these actions will be given under measures 2.3.1 and 2.3.2 of Proder, respectively «Minimization of Post-Fire Biotic Risks» and «Recovery of Productive Potential».
Within these measures, four sub-actions are also identified: “Post-fire emergency stabilization”; “Restoration of the forestry potential of areas affected by the occurrence of fires”; 'Control of pests and diseases in forest species following the occurrence of fires'; and 'Control of non-indigenous woody invasive species following fires'.
The recovery of paths, felling and removal of fallen trees, cleaning of burnt material in water lines, the use of woody material to build dikes to prevent the progression of torrential water masses and the opening of furrows according to the curves of ground level are other measures to be supported.
AUTHORS: Hugo Rodrigues with Mariana Soares
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