Portugal, wildfires and the eucalyptus curse

Nobody would guess that in 2017 greater than 50,000 hectares burned within the hills between Pedrogrão Grande and Castanheira de Pera, in central Portugal. The vegetation is luxuriant once more and a mantle of eucalyptus globulus (also called blue gum) covers a lot of the mountainous panorama. These are plantations somewhat than forests, and its cover already reaches a peak of 10 or 15 metres. Though the timber will not be but able to be harvested for the pulp trade, there may be loads of human exercise happening.

”For the time being we’re primarily processing pine wooden, which we reduce and export. Such a wooden is used for pallets, furnishings, biomass and gas reminiscent of pellets. Reducing the eucalyptus remains to be about three years away”, says Sandra Carvalho, a small businesswoman and proprietor of one of many fundamental sawmills within the space. In 2017, her household’s mill was fully destroyed.

Six years on, Sandra is operating from one eucalyptus plot to the subsequent to examine on her employees’ progress in clearing the dense undergrowth generated by this plant, which is native to Australia however is now the first tree species in Portugal. Eucalyptus covers 845,000 hectares within the Iberian countryside, or 26 p.c of forests. Technically these are cultivations that feed the paper and cellulose sectors, with eucalyptus grown completely for pulp, which is used to make numerous paper merchandise.

The species burns notably shortly in fires, an element that continues to generate debate amongst consultants about its dangerousness.

Monoculture and the paper enterprise

Sandra’s firm supplies its forest-pruning service by means of the affiliation Biond, which works with the principle gamers of the massive Portuguese pulp trade. The group is financed by the European Union’s Restoration and Resilience Facility and the NextGenerationEU programme. One in every of Biond’s missions is the maintenance of this space of 1,400 hectares till 2025: ”At present, about 250 hectares of eucalyptus plantations have been pruned. We reduce by means of the dense, extremely flammable undergrowth that doesn’t permit easy accessibility to the forest in case of fireside,” explains Sandra.

This preemptive upkeep is usually uncared for in Europe’s forests, particularly in rural areas present process depopulation. It serves to guard in opposition to massive accumulations of tinder that fuels fires.

Within the case of the Pedrogrão Grande hearth of 2017, many blamed the tragedy on a mixture of things: intensive eucalyptus monoculture; the buildup of tinder between timber attributable to inadequate repairs; and more and more dry climate in the summertime months. The explosive mixture resulted in 66 deaths and lots of of accidents.