Quercus has just launched a new campaign for the Green Cork Schools project, in partnership with Missão Continente, to commemorate Indigenous Forest Day.
This initiative is collecting used stoppers for recycling, which are used to plant thousands of native trees.
Schools and IPSS that wish to participate can register at http://www.greencork.org, being able to see their effort recognized at the end of the campaign with the delivery of prizes according to the amount of cork stoppers collected.
This collection contributes to reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills or incineration, defending the cork stopper as a fully ecological product and also planting indigenous species through the return of the collection of stoppers, which allows the financing of initiatives supported by the Common Forest project.
This school year, the Green Cork Schools project will promote various initiatives, such as Christmas ornaments with waste reuse; competitions on the International Year of the Elimination of Child Labour; the contest Direitos em Cork, for Pre-School and 1st Cycle; the Sobreiro dos Direitos contest, for the 2nd and 3rd Cycles, and the Direitos, Cortiça e…Ação contest, for Secondary Education.
Indigenous Forest Day, 23 November, is marked in autumn to emphasize that this is the most favorable time of year for planting native trees in Portugal, as there is more moisture in the soil and more precipitation is expected in the months necessary for the newly planted young trees to survive.
This day also serves to promote the importance of conserving natural forests. Evergreen hardwoods account for a third of the forest area (34%), with cork oak and holm oak forests occupying about one million hectares in the 2015 survey.
In 2016, Quercus called for the protection of oak trees in Portugal. The protection of these oak woods would be reflected at the level of nature conservation, in particular by the ability to promote the diversity of fauna and flora, establishing a natural and environmental heritage, which are the source of different essential and entirely essential life forms. for the wealth of our country.
Why does our native forest disappear?
The main problem of the disappearance of our native forest is mainly due to the felling of trees with the absence of reforestation with native species, the construction of infrastructures and buildings, excessive grazing, slow growth, replacement by exotic species, such as eucalyptus, or even the action and recurrence of fire.
Every year, Quercus draws attention to the importance of our native forests, and one of the Association's missions (2) is to carry out continuous work in this area with several projects, including: Create Forests, Common Forest, or the promotion of specific species like yew or monastery.
“This year, in addition to kicking off the annual plantations, which due to the pandemic started later, we also launched the annual Green Cork Schools campaign”, explains Quercus.
The autochthonous forest also contributes to the territory's resilience to climate change. Quercus is participating in LIFE LiveAdapt (2018-2022), a project financed by the LIFE program of the European Union, which brings together a multidisciplinary team of entities from Spain, Portugal and France, in search of solutions to combat climate change in the models extensive livestock production in southern Europe, including pastoral agro-silvo systems of cork oak forests. Quercus suber (cork oak).
A Tree for the Forest Campaign runs until the end of the year
By the end of the year, the 7th edition of the Uma Árvore pela Floresta (4) campaign is under way, an initiative by Quercus and CTT that has already planted nearly 100 native trees in our country.
For just 3 and a half euros, each kit purchased at 300 CTT stores or online store (5) guarantees the planting of a tree in Protected Areas affected by fires, in spring 2021.
Through the code present in each kit it is possible to register the tree on the official website and know where it will be planted.
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