Eco123 Revista da Economia e Ecologia
Every forest fire damages nature and destroys property, leaving behind victims, suffering and grief in its wake, as well as even more ashes and millions of tons of CO2, the greenhouse gas. After every forest fire, there is always the next forest fire. This has been part of life in Portugal and other southern countries for many years. But why is this? The country, with an area of just under 93,000 km², is home to around 10,000 km² of environmentally harmful eucalyptus monocultures. These plantations are highly combustible and highly flammable, serving as a store of living raw material to be used for commercial purposes in the paper industry, while simultaneously depleting the soil of its groundwater. What else should the forest be used for? This is a question that deserves to be discussed in greater detail in Portugal, especially in Monchique. In addition to us humans, there are many endangered animal and plant species living in and around the forest. We don’t live alone in this world, do we?
It should be easy for the national civil protection agencies, the fire brigade and the ICNF (Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas –Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests), the body responsible for protecting forests, to limit and minimise the risk of future forest fires. The problem should finally be brought under control, especially after the many years that we have spent gaining a more detailed understanding of nature. After all, Portugal and the ICNF have received enough money from the EU to be in a position to report its successes to Brussels, both for this year and in the future. And the University of Coimbra, in central Portugal, has an excellent research centre for studying forest fires, their prevention and control, with a technical team that was led for many years by Professor Domingos Xavier Viegas, who is well-known all across Europe.
Let us grab a magnifying glass and have a closer look. In southern Portugal, in the region of Monchique, with its mountain range of the same name, there is a district covering almost 400 km². It is home to just under 5,000 residents, both native and foreign: Portuguese, English, Irish, South African, German, etc. This population has been in constant decline for quite some time. Eucalyptus monocultures and the use of chainsaws are a major part of everyday life here. Since 1974, over 300 km² (76% of the former mixed forests) have been converted into large-scale monocultures. Everyone wants to earn a lot of money, but please let’s not do this at the expense of others… Inevitably, there have been frequent large-scale fires in Monchique over the past 50 years: in 1986, 1991, 2003, 2004, 2016 and 2018. Thousands of hectares of mixed forest and traditional agriculture have been lost. And the future of the Monchique district is now written in the stars.
In regard to the subject of ‘controlled burning’, more than 60 officials – from the ICNF, civil protection agencies, fire services and regional politicians – met for a very special seminar at a hotel in Caldas de Monchique. The aim was to prepare for the 2026 forest fire season. Interesting, do you think?
The mayor of Monchique is a member of the Socialist Party and was re-elected last year in the local elections with an absolute majority: Paulo Alves, a former manager of the state-owned Caixa Geral de Depositos savings bank, has the welfare of his district in mind when he invites guests to a two-day seminar at the Monchique Resort & Spa Hotel. ECO123 was also there – on your behalf – listened to the lectures on the topic and watched the ‘controlled fire’ experiment near the Fóia mountain peak (902 metres): until the helicopter arrived with the water…
This seminar was not about finding concrete solutions for extinguishing forest fires more quickly, but rather about learning to understand the history and traditions of fire. What strikes the author of this article as peculiar is that people should seek to tame nature through the use of controlled fires; small fires turn into larger forest fires because the control of the fire is lost. Climate change. Yet we learn, both within and beyond the district of Monchique, that forest fires can also be extinguished with water. This was not, however, the theme of the various presentations made to the participants during the first three hours of the seminar, in which, somewhat surprisingly, all the speakers took more time than they had been allotted according to the programme. The material that the audience was forced to listen to was boring and poorly prepared. Furthermore, the schedule was completely thrown off track. As a result, the coffee breaks and discussions were shortened. Incidentally, only men spoke. Women had nothing to say during these two days. The topic of forest fires seems to be a man’s business in Portugal. Women are allowed to watch. It would be important to hear how women view the issue of forest fire prevention. And, very importantly, not a single female specialist was invited from the University of Coimbra, the only centre researching into this subject in Portugal. Why not? Were they forgotten? Or was this intentional?
A whole host of omissions. How can a socialist mayor, who has the social welfare of his citizens at heart, invite people to a seminar that completely ignores the disasters caused by the far too many forest fires in Monchique and Portugal? A mayor is the chief officer responsible for leading the response to a disaster, with an army of firefighters at his disposal. In this case, they had nothing better to do in an emergency than twiddle their thumbs and wait, because their regional commander, Senhor Vaz Pinto (Faro) was dismissed during the last forest fire in 2018 while on duty – and his successor, Gaspar (Lisbon), did not arrive at the scene of the disaster in time. As a result, more than 1,500 firefighters were left without leadership and without guidance for 48 hours – and, above all, without an operational plan. Shouldn’t the mistakes made during a forest fire finally be addressed so that they don’t come back to haunt us in the future? The commander who was dismissed by the central government on 5 August 2018 was listed in the seminar programme as one of three opening speakers. His seat remained empty. Why?
At a seminar like this, can I expect the participants to once again discuss in detail the report presented to the Portuguese Parliament in Lisbon (Relatório da Assembleia Nacional) and analyse the mistakes made in August 2018 – with a view to avoiding such mistakes in the future? Over 78 pages, independent specialists studied in detail everything that happened between Friday, 3 August and Friday, 10 August: the development of the disastrous forest fire was analysed hour by hour and those responsible were named, including a study of the meteorological facts (temperatures, wind changes, wind speeds, etc.).
To this day, eight years later, the parliamentary report has remained largely ignored by politicians; no one responsible has been charged (let alone convicted) and many thousands of victims have still not received any compensation, leaving the door wide open for such a disaster to happen again tomorrow. The art of ignoring difficulties remains very much alive in Monchique. The problems involved in fighting forest fires begin with prevention. This journalist therefore concludes that the topic has been sidestepped. Perhaps the expectations for this seminar were too high because the solutions proposed are certainly far too small. Anyone who plays with fire in a eucalyptus forest should have their matches taken away from them. The civil protection authorities should definitely try using the full force of water for extinguishing fires, together with the committed involvement of all citizens and landowners. And this means that only native trees should be allowed to be planted within a ten-kilometre radius around Monchique.
Planting eucalyptus monocultures is a completely unprofitable way of doing business. There are always only two or three winners and thousands who lose their homes and farms, and some even their lives. What if we tried a WIN-WIN approach?
