Portugal lives “at war with the forest” and does not value rural territories
The professor at the University of Coimbra (UC) Helena Freitas regretted, this Wednesday, that Portugal is “at war with the forest” and does not value rural territories, which would contribute to an increase in forest fires.
“Dangerous territories are a brutal danger. We are today the unity of the internal war, today, with the forest and the war with the rural territories of mission for the war.
In his view, territories are absolutely essential”, “this is the best one we have, which is absolutely essential” .
Helena Freitas, who currently directs Serralves Park, explained that “fires happen where there are accumulated kills and disordered forest” and “this is unequivocally associated with a problem of abandonment of property and a basic disorder in the territories, particularly in rural territories. ”.
According to the biologist, when the land “is farmed, the only way that people are not studied much to much less value it was above all”, but “the more complex than that” and “it is worth arranging scapegoats”.
“What happens is that the territory, in general, is disordered. We have less than 20% of the Portuguese living in rural territories and, in fact, we have them abandoned”, he lamented.
In his opinion, the main problem of what has no value: “we are not even able to perceive the value that territory in nature”.
“Rural territory is often valuable and it was also thought that it was developed in the minds, in the logics, modeled in the studies that we created value”.
Helena Freitas didn’t even say water, even though it was already more valued as a good every time she said it was crucial for agriculture and the forest.
“We have been very profligate with regard to the way we view nature, which is also our value of our resources and, natural life, of our territory. We have to realize that it has value and we have to find instruments to make this value effective in the market as well”, he defended.
In his opinion, “perhaps we can look at the protected areas, which still represent 20% of the national territory, and make them good examples of how the forest is taken care of, how good agriculture is practiced, how rivers are taken care of”.
“We have an agenda of doing well, of good practices by the State itself in managing the territory. These areas deviate from being an example”, he stressed.
The researcher told Lusa that she has no doubt that the Centro region today has “a brutally complex problem to solve in this matter of forest management”.
“We already have naturalized eucalyptus, it is not even necessary to plant it, we have exotic forest species growing and invading everything, we are losing soil productivity, and with that, we will also have a problem with water resources”, he warned.
In this context, it was defended that “they are solutions to be used” and that the administration is technical and taken to the territories.
“Technical skills don’t have to stay in Lisbon, there’s no reason for that. The administration that has technical responsibilities in these areas has to be active in the territories and help people to find solutions. Demonstrations that show people how it is possible to make the new one, he stressed.