National tree purge ordered by Government

Private landowners have until March 15th next year to clean scrubland and trees from around isolated properties, along roadsides and from the edge of villages. If landowners fail to do so, councils will take on the work which will have to be finished before the end of May.

The Secretary of State for Civil Protection, José Artur Neves, acknowledged today in the debate on the 2018 State Budget that there is "immense amount of work to be done" to prepare the country for next year's fire season, saying that "prevention will help instill a feeling of security for country folk, a feeling that has been absent until now."

"To this end, we want private landowners to attend to all the area surrounding villages, isolated houses, business parks and even along roadsides and clear them all of combustible scrub and trees such as eucalyptus, pine, shrubs and arbutus," said the Secretary of State who did not point out that much of this clearance work already is provided for in existing decree laws but often does not get done.

Jose Artur Neves said that a "list will be made" so that "everyone knows what they have to clean" and that he will be instructing the preservation of "species such as oaks and chestnut trees."

Neves said that municipalities need to get deeply involved, "If some owners - due to ignorance or laziness - do not do the work, the municipalities will come in and do it for them so that by the end of next May, we have the safe villages, green spaces, safe roads, safe forests and safe cable corridors."

MP, Nuno Magalhães, offered a detail for consideration as the compensation allocated in next year's budget is only for those who died in this summer's fires, not for those that were injured.

The Ministry of Finance has €186 million set aside for fire related expenditure with €62 million allocated for "compensation for deaths in the forest fires of June and October."

The prime minister said that he intends to extend compensation to the seriously injured, mainly because President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa wanted it when he called for a "re-examination of the matter, in particular the section on seriously injured people."

PM António Costa said "We already have a very rapid system of support for the victims and our intention is to extend this to the seriously injured, since the commission that was set up is capable of completing the report within the next two weeks, presenting the compensation criteria of the victims and can do the same for the injured."

Comments  

+1 #10 Peter Booker 2017-11-27 09:19

bigbrotheris watching makes a good point. And could we have more goats and goatherds please?

0 #9 bigbrotheris watchin 2017-11-26 10:25

During the last 25 years government have and had new ideas to solve the fire problems. It never helped. Yearly the Portuguese Government spend hundreds of millions AFTER the damage is done. Now the new solution is hunting people that own some land that should be cleaned. If not penalties and more penalties. Many people that own some land have a very low income and can't effort cleaning. Why not reserving all yearly wasted money into machines and labour to clean before droughts. Why not creating jobs to realize this. If every "conselho" has a few machines in fire sensitive areas cleaning could start the next day, 365 days a year. Like this not just a few people are penalized because they don't have enough money. About penalizing, does anyone hear or read articles how arsonist are penalized in Portugal ? With a heavy minimum penalty by law maybe they will think twice before....

+1 #8 Krin 2017-11-26 09:38

how about the state itself and the companies who own eucalyptus????

-1 #7 James Mayhew 2017-11-25 18:59

An interesting topic but the devil is in the detail, and this being Portugal, 'might is right'. So what about foreigners, us, renovating ruins in or near eucalyptus woodland ? We have 2 such ruins, both registered urbanas. Can our neighbours stop our renovations as it means their eucalyptus must now be dug up? At their expense.

+1 #6 SueF 2017-11-25 09:40

Can I assume that the pulp industry will be removing all eucalyptus within 100m from any houses as is required by law and cleaning up all the debris beneath the trees?

+1 #5 elspeth macmillan 2017-11-25 08:33

Local workmen dumped highly combustible material on the edge of my land, by the road, onto fire-repelling succulents which I had planted for that very reason, thus killing them. Am I supposed to clear it up?

+2 #4 liveaboard 2017-11-24 18:23

I guess this means I have to cut my pine forest down; which I'm told is not allowed without a cutting permit from the agriculture department, and possibly the "natural" park authority as well.
Anyway, who care about pines? They're just worthless native plants that cool the area, provide shelter to wildlife, and stabilize the soil.

0 #3 sagalaut 2017-11-24 14:02

Quoting Ed:

Quoting Peter Booker:

"…all of combustible scrub and trees such as eucalyptus, pine, shrubs and arbustus" Sounds good, but does it mean anything? Shrubs and arbutus are the same thing, and so this statement is tautologous. All of these items are combustible.

It looks as if we have to chop down everything which is not an oak or a chestnut.

Thanks. I will let the Secretary of State know...

+1 #2 Ed 2017-11-23 20:30

Quoting Peter Booker:

"…all of combustible scrub and trees such as eucalyptus, pine, shrubs and arbustus" Sounds good, but does it mean anything? Shrubs and arbutus are the same thing, and so this statement is tautologous. All of these items are combustible.

It looks as if we have to chop down everything which is not an oak or a chestnut.

Thanks. I will let the Secretary of State know...

+1 #1 Peter Booker 2017-11-23 20:16

"…all of combustible scrub and trees such as eucalyptus, pine, shrubs and arbustus" Sounds good, but does it mean anything? Shrubs and arbutus are the same thing, and so this statement is tautologous. All of these items are combustible.

It looks as if we have to chop down everything which is not an oak or a chestnut.

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