The northeast of the Algarve is a good example of the counterproductive application of a public policy, in this case, the CAP in its various dimensions, but also, for the sake of truth, of the regional development policy.
Indeed, in the last quarter of a century we have applied all kinds of policy measures in the territory of the northeast of the Algarve, namely, integrated rural development programs (PIDR), rural centres, the national program to combat desertification, agro-environmental measures and agroforestry from the 1992 CAP reform, the Leader rural development programme, the rural development programs of the various Community Support Frameworks (CSF), the regional operational programs of the NUTS II region of the Algarve, the cross-border cooperation programmes.
In all cases, the northeast of the Algarve resisted, as if to say that their problem had become a chronic disease to which all the experts in the political engineering of the territory have to submit.
In the meantime, thirty years have passed since the 1992 CAP accompanying measures and almost twenty-five years have passed since the income compensation granted under the Community Regulation 2080 (agroforestry) included in these accompanying measures.
Having arrived here, I ask, do we have an agroforestry economy worthy of the name in the northeast of the Algarve today? Do we currently have a multifunctionality and pluriactivity worthy of the name? Have we stopped the vicious circle of desertification and depopulation? At least, we touristized the remote interior and the Lower Guadiana? In terms of cross-border cooperation, have we made progress worthy of the name? Do we already have the Guadiana navigable up to Alcoutim? And the Serra do Caldeirão, is it already free from the risk of fire?
Unfortunately, the answers are not satisfactory. We only implemented some mitigation and remediation policy and we cannot say that we have reversed the long-term trend of the northeast of the Algarve.
And yet, in the next twenty years, agro-environmental, agro-energy and agro-forestry measures in the northeast of the Algarve and in the entire barrocal-serra sub-region continue to make sense, all the more so due to climate change, soil regeneration, to the energy transition, carbon sequestration and the supply of water resources in the region, but they need to be re-framed in another development model for the northeast of the Algarve and the barrocal-serra, a model that covers the entire leeward Algarve and recovers the multifunctionality of agriculture. silvo-pastoral through a new generation of environmental payments for the provision of ecosystem services.
Without this association between agro-rural multifunctionality and payment for services, the ineluctable withering away of the northeast of the Algarve will be.
This example from the northeast of the Algarve could be extended to other sub-regions of the country and illustrates well the care that must be taken with the conditions for formulating and carrying out a public policy or, more specifically, with the convergence and integration of policy measures in a given territory.
It is in this context and following the great fires of 2017 that the Landscape Transformation Program (PTP) was created, created by Resolution of the Council of Ministers (RCM) No. 49/2020 of 24 June. Due to its importance for the development of the interior, I bring to the attention of the readers some passages of this Resolution.
“Forest areas, wooded areas, woods and pastures, which occupy almost 70% of the land area of mainland Portugal, are a vital element of the rural landscape and support and connectivity of ecosystems, as well as an economic, environmental and social anchor for the territories. and its collective memory. They play a key role in carbon sequestration, essential for Portugal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, and they also play an important role in regulating the different natural cycles.
However, in a significant part of these forest areas, the physical characteristics, such as the relief or poor soils, the accentuated depopulation and aging of the population, and the consequent abandonment of the agro-silvo-pastoral model, together with an extreme fragmentation of properties, determine a framework marked by extensive monoculture forest areas, most of them unmanaged, which, in the presence of adverse weather conditions, reach levels of extreme fire danger, jeopardizing people, animals and property, including natural and cultural heritage.
For these contexts, it is necessary to develop structured and environmentally and financially sustainable responses in order to increase their socio-ecological resilience and contribute to their integrated development, from the reordering of the landscape, combined with an agricultural, agroforestry and forestry mosaic. pastoral, capable of providing various environmental services and sustaining the economic activities associated with them, significantly reducing the severity of the burned area.
For this purpose, it is essential to motivate the owners, preferably constituted in groups, to invest and manage their rustic properties, including in the post-fire context, in order to break the divestment cycle and promote active management, planning and revitalization of smallholding forest areas.
It is precisely the achievement of scale – minimal landscape units – one of the critical success factors of management and planning actions in the context of these territories, given their extremely fragmented ownership structure. This land ownership structure profile, associated with the disincentives that the high fire risk and low profitability represent, not only keep owners away from investing in their properties, but are also a blocking factor to the development of collective solutions, as they are dependent on the joint and concerted action of countless owners”.
Therefore, the RCM establishes as guiding principles for the PTP:
a) Support and remuneration for the long-term transformation of the landscape, through a participatory process that reinforces the territorial culture and the capacity of its actors;
b) The adoption of public policies of an environmental nature that align the interests of society and future generations with those of land owners and managers, in order to promote greater inter-territorial and inter-generational justice;
c) The application of sustainable management to rural property as a pillar of territorial planning, making it viable in smallholding territories through its productive valorization and the recognition and compensation of positive externalities;
d) The defense of the public interest in assuming the management of unmanaged rustic properties without a known owner, namely with regard to the execution of actions to defend the forest against fire and prevent biotic (pests and diseases) and abiotic risks;
e) Close monitoring of projects and good monitoring and evaluation of results according to established goals and objectives, based on indicators of economic efficiency and effectiveness and territorial sustainability;
f) The definition of expedited and flexible intervention models, particularly in the post-fire period, in order to trigger, immediately and in loco, the actions necessary for emergency stabilization.
To implement these guiding principles, the PTP provides for the following programmatic intervention measures:
a) Landscape Reorganization and Management Programs (PRGP), aimed at promoting landscape design as a reference for a new economy in rural territories;
b) Integrated Landscape Management Areas, which define a grouped management model, operationalized through Integrated Landscape Management Operations (OIGP);
c) «Aldeia Condominium», a support program for villages located in forested territories, with the objective of ensuring the management of fuels around population clusters in areas of high forest density;
d) Program “Emparcelar para Ordenar”, with a view to promoting the increase in the physical dimension of rural properties in the context of smallholdings and, thus, increasing economic, social and environmental viability and sustainability.
In the northeast of the Algarve, the application of regulation 2080 substantially reduced the multiple use of the forest, started a pine forest monoculture and implemented the so-called protection forest with a very high density per hectare.
This forestry monoculture, by breaking the delicate balance that came from behind, may have resolved income compensation for some time, but it blocked other possible solutions within the reach of agro-forestry-pastoralism that would have, perhaps, spared the pluriactivity and multifunctionality of the northeast Algarve.
I remember what, by the way, wrote Eng. Victor Louro, in “The forest in Portugal” (Gradiva, 2016, p.234):
- The arboreal cover protects the soil through a living blanket, that is, of bushes that are born and grow in a relatively open forest, not very dense,
- Forest installation can be achieved with low soil mobilization,
- A correct installation and management allows an adequate control of surface water runoff, once again saving the soil,
- The techniques for extracting woody material and cork must take into account the need not to compact the soil, using appropriate equipment to avoid opening trails that could become so many ravines for water runoff.
- The so-called cleaning of the bushes done anyway and taking everything in front of you is a blunder for not feeding, precisely, the dead blanket.
In other words, with a more polycultural forestry, it would have been possible to preserve and improve the multifunctionality of the agroforestry economy in the Northeast, which also includes, for example, greater balance through the recolonization of the holm oak and the installation of biodiverse pasture for small ruminants. However, the decapitalization of families, the accelerated aging and the degradation of the symbolic capital of this sub-region did not allow this to happen.
Final Notes
I have a suggestion here. Within the framework of the PTP, the creation of integrated landscape management areas (AIGP) is foreseen with the aim of promoting the management of agroforestry spaces in areas of smallholdings and high risk of fire. The model provides, in addition to the Management Entities of the Forest Intervention Zones (ZIF), the Forest Management Units (UGF) for the aggregate management of forest and agricultural spaces, in particular smallholdings.
The AIGP model also foresees the availability of financial instruments that guarantee predictable and stable returns in the medium term. This support includes, in the short term, financing for the constitution and functioning of entities responsible for the administration and management of the AIGP, through the signing of program contracts.
As an innovative element of the AIGPs, the introduction of the multi-fund modality stands out, which combines, for the same area that is supported, the financing instruments of the European Rural Development Fund and the Environmental Fund, providing support not only for investment, but also for maintenance. and medium-term management, as well as remuneration for ecosystem services, which will take the form of a base remuneration depending on the area managed while this support framework is in force, allowing stable and predictable remuneration conditions in the medium term.
Between illusion and hope, I believe that the AIGPs fit well in the framework of policy measures promised by the European bazooka, with expression in the 2026 recovery program and in the future 2030 partnership agreement, as well as in the regional operational program for the Algarve. It is a program for a decade, however, if we do not have a mission structure or an actor-network for the Northeast of the Algarve and the Baixo Guadiana we will not be successful, because without permanence there will be no competence.
But it is not enough, mitigation and remediation are not enough, it is the entire leeward Algarve that is at stake, so this entire sub-region urgently needs a Great Transformation to be able to rewrite its future on straight lines.
Firstly, a plan for the regularization of the Guadiana which, however, is not limited to being a simple diversion channel for the Algarve coast.
Second, an AIGP that effectively carries out the five measures proposed by Eng. Victor Louro and that, in this way, contribute to fulfilling the three major transitions of the next decade, the climate, energy and ecological transition, where regeneration and soil recovery take the main place.
Thirdly, Mértola, Alcoutim and Castro Marim, due to their extraordinary beauty, can be historical-cultural and tourist icons of this entire sub-region as long as they are associated with three or four events of great Iberian, European and international prestige.
Fourth, two or three high-quality nature trails in connection with the heritage, natural and cultural elements existing in the sub-region.
Fifth, an integrated program for the agro-silvo-pastoral area that aims to obtain three or four quality products through the application of a program of good practices of circular economy and ecosystem services (goods of merit and payments for ecosystem services). ) and which are a good illustration of the Mediterranean diet in the Eastern Algarve.
Finally, a program of incentives and internships with forest intervention areas (ZIF), forest management units (UGF) and local development associations (ADL) to attract young rural and neo-rural entrepreneurs who, through startup, research and development projects and social innovation projects, wish to contribute to the achievement of these development goals.
These six subprograms will form part of an integrated development program for the Eastern Algarve and will be operated by a mission structure or actor-network with direct participation of local and regional agents. The 2030 goal is already on the horizon, the next battle against oblivion is about to begin.
Author António Covas is a Retired Full Professor at the University of Algarve
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