Relocations will ″ reduce the eucalyptus area in Portugal, not increase ″
João Paulo Catarino considers “very strange” the position of the environmental associations that accused the Government of preparing an increase in the area of eucalyptus and, a week after the minister of the Environment denied the accusation, it is now the turn of the secretary of State to respond – in writing – to the open letter sent to the tutelage by eight associations.
The letter signed by João Paulo Catarino, to which JN had access, begins to clarify that the proposed ordinance under discussion aims to make the compensation projects as a result of the law effective, not changing in any way the prohibition, enshrined since 2017, of increasing the eucalyptus plantation area in Portugal”.
Soon after, the document specifies that, “in 2019, the final data from the National Forest Inventory 6 identified a total area of 845,000 ha occupied by species of the genus Eucalyptus in continental territory. Taking into account the need to reduce the area of eucalyptus . up to the target of 812,000 ha selected in the National Strategy for Forests, which is included in the 7 PROF [Programas Regionais de Ordenamento Florestal] added to the continental territory, a mechanism for locating (compensation projects) of 36 746 ha of eucalyptus from inadequate ecological zones or specific to more specific and productive areas was foreseen”.
Displaced plantations are reduced
To JN, the Secretary of State for Nature Conservation, Forests and Spatial Planning explained that it is a process of “relocation with reduction: removing on one side and putting on another, but always with a 10% reduction on the first If this relocation takes place only two years later, it is already 20%. And so on, up to five years, which is the maximum allowed, with a 50% reduction. In other words, if a person uproots the eucalyptus trees today and only intending to plant them in three years’ time, there must be a 30% reduction in the area that he took off”.
“These ordinances are precisely to be able to implement the mechanism that will allow us to reduce an area of eucalyptus in Portugal, and not increase it, as in the open letter”, said the official, who visited on Thursday, in Mogadouro, an old eucalyptus grove converted into a native forest.
“Misinterpretation” by environmentalists
“This relocation always implies a reduction in area, not an increase. Because we can only plant 90 hectares in municipality B if we have uprooted 100 hectares in municipality A. But municipality B must have a quota available to accommodate this area that will be relocated”, says João Paulo Catarino, who says he does not understand the position of the environmentalists.
“We can say that there was an interpretation of what is in the ordinance, and that is why I try to explain in the letter what is in the law. [a acusação das associações] It obviously makes me particularly confused, knowing that we are talking about enlightened entities and people, who know perfectly well that it is not an ordinance that amends a law. In other words, the Government could never, through an ordinance, change what is
today a law “turns off, remembering that” those entities accompany the revision of the PROF.
More than 100 municipalities can host transferred eucalyptus trees
In the letter addressed to the eight associations, the Secretary of State underlines that “projects for the compensation of eucalyptus areas necessarily carry with them an area reduction, translating this reduction into a global minimum value of 10%”. For relocations to be possible, it was necessary to find the municipalities with availability of territory for eucalyptus transfer areas. Thus, “the final IFN6 data [Inventário Florestal] allowed to identify a set of 124 municipalities in which it is considered appropriate to increase the maximum limits of the area to be occupied by species of the genus Eucalyptus”.
“It is the updating of the ordinances, through this incentive that was made, which now allows us to know in concrete which public councils and which area they can receive. This is what is under public discussion”, guarantees João Paulo Catarino, to JN, referring that there is a set of hypotheses in which they are not compensation projects. For example, in areas “where eucalyptus already represents an occupation equal to or greater than 25% of the county’s area”.
On the other hand, “if eucalyptus is pulled into a protected area and out of a protected area, there is no area reduction, correctly to encourage the alteration and removal of eucalyptus from protected areas”, highlights the official.