The Minister of the Environment and the Secretary of State for Forestry visited Monchique last Friday, March 31st, and met with mayors and local actors, such as ASPAFLOBAL, to discuss the challenges of forest management in this municipality.
The meeting discussed the need to reconcile the different territorial management instruments and socio-economic activities in low-density rural territories, since, according to the municipality, «the prohibition policies of recent decades have led this municipality to abandonment and ageing, contributing neither to the reduction of rural fires nor to the conservation of nature».
On this day, the need to amend Decree-Law No 82/2021, of October 13, which regulates the SGIFR (Integrated Management System for Rural Housing) was also addressed, insofar as it "conditions the activities of building, fruition and use of machinery in forest areas, depending on the danger of fire and on days the risk of rural fire is very high and maximum».
«With more than 80% of the municipality of Monchique classified as highly dangerous by fire and located in one of the hottest regions of the country, these prohibitions call into question the execution of fire prevention measures themselves, but also the survival of small and medium-sized companies in the forestry and tourism sector, as well as contributing to the increase in the abandonment of rural areas and their ageing», says the municipality.
The need to change the Landscape Reorganization and Management Program for the Serra de Monchique and Silves was also the subject of debate.
According to the Municipality, if this landscape-scale territory management instrument, whose objective is to make this landscape more resilient to rural fires, maintains its current wording, «it will abandon, in the short medium term, one third of the area forestry in the county, and its revision is urgent».
With 86% of the area in the municipality of Monchique classified as a ZEC (special conservation area) within the scope of the Natura 2000 Network, the Management Plans for the Natura 2000 Network (ZPE/ZEC Monchique and Arade/Odelouca) were also discussed.
The debate was followed by a visit by Duarte Cordeiro and João Paulo Catarino to exemplary projects of actions that have been carried out in the county: Primary Fuel Management Track on the Madrinha/Chilrão section; LIFE RELICT environmental restoration “Preserving Continental Laurissilva Relics”; and condominiums in the village of Corchas and Portela da Serenada.
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