Promoting environmental education and volunteering actions, especially in the areas of the Natura 2000 network in the municipality of Monchique, is the objective of the protocol signed this Wednesday, the 26th, between the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), and the Municipality of Monchique and the local environmental association “A Nossa Terra”.
This partnership arises and is financed under the LIFE project, called LIFE Volunteer Escapes – Volunteer with the European Solidarity Corps for Activities in Portugal with Ecological Sense, which was presented on the same day, in Faro, in a session that marked the start of SEIVA – Education and Environmental Volunteer Initiatives Week, promoted by APA, through ARH do Algarve.
In signing the document, Paula Noronha, from ARH do Algarve, explained that this is "symbolically" the first of 16 protocols to be signed with each of the Algarve's municipalities. "Monchique suffered a severe blow this summer, with the catastrophe of fires, so it is symbolic that this first protocol is signed with this municipality," said that technique.
For his part, Rui André, Mayor of Monchique, recalled the fact that his municipality already participates, with other entities, in other LIFE projects, financed by the European Union, namely one called "Terra de Seixe", which focuses on a border area between its municipality and the neighbors of Odemira and Aljezur.
All these projects, but especially the great fire in August, «challenge us all to rethink the territory, making it more resilient». “Monchique has to take advantage of this opportunity created by the fire to make a plan for changing the landscape and for land use. For this, we need everyone's help, not least because it is necessary to guarantee the existence of the most varied economic activities in the territory, from the production forest, to the extraction of wood, to nature tourism, to agriculture and animal husbandry, to maintenance and valorization of such emblematic species as the Monchique oak», added the mayor.
As for the protocol itself, which provides for structured volunteer actions in favor of the forest and nature, Rui André hopes that it can "set an example in the future".
«This protocol promotes a partnership work between the APA, the Municipality and the A Nossa Terra association, which is part of civil society, but above all organized volunteer work, so that this work bears more fruit and is not just a voluntarism».
Expressing his knowledge of the many people who want to help Monchique recover from the fire – and even though this protocol began to be worked on even before the August fire –, the mayor defends the need to “include volunteers”. “I am a great supporter of volunteering, but let it be organized. The worst thing that can happen is that the volunteers are not included».
As for future volunteers under the LIFE Volunteer Escapes, Rui André defended, in statements to the Sul Informação, that “it will be pertinent the presence of people who can, by their even scientific knowledge and experience, contribute to much of the work that still needs to be done”.
This project, he added, intends to "create bridges for people who, at the academic level, take an interesting path, acquire skills, but then do not have the possibility of putting them on the ground." In Monchique, they will have that possibility.
In addition, stresses the Monchiquense mayor, alluding to the problem of depopulation of his mountainous territory, "who knows if a volunteer cannot become a resident".
Stephen Hugman, president of A Nossa Terra, one of the entities that will host and provide volunteers, recalled the work that his association has done in planting native forest species in the mountains. Planting is even easy, there are always volunteers to do it, it is difficult afterwards to guarantee the maintenance of these replanted areas, he explained.
But A Nossa Terra has ensured the management of an area planted with native trees for years. "Oddly enough, it was in the firebreak around that area that the August fire stopped," said Stephen Hugman.
As for Mercês Ferreira, member of the Board of Directors of the APA, he stressed that "all projects and purposes of environmental education have to be hand in hand with the local government."
What actions to promote?
The protocol signed between the three entities – Câmara de Monchique, APA and A Nossa Terra – provides that volunteering will be promoted in the monitoring of the ecological quality of the water in the streams, monitoring and cleaning of water lines, control and removal of invasive species and planting of autochthonous species, creation and implementation of environmental education and volunteer activities and also participation in volunteering dissemination activities, in schools and in other informal contexts.
As part of the partnership, APA will promote, in Monchique, the 9th ERVAA - Regional Meeting of Environmental Volunteering for Water, taking place on the Day of the Autochthonous Forest (on the 23rd and 24th of November).
LIFE also predicts that, in the spring of 2019 and 2020, there will be two environmental volunteer camps in Monchique, for which the City will guarantee accommodation and food.
Comments