The March 15 deadline for landowners to clean their properties ahead of this year’s ‘fire season’ has been dubbed “unworkable” by local authorities; possibly ‘illegal’ by a landscaping architect and “plain barmy” by numerous other sources.
In an effort to keep people ‘informed’ and try to reduce growing confusion Safe Communities Portugal has just released its “fifth definitive guide to rural protection and land clearing”, admitting nonetheless that it “cannot provide all the answers as the laws can be quite complicated and are frequently changing”.
At the same time, tabloid Correio da Manhã carries a double page spread today raising even more doubts and so adding to the confusion.
Says the paper, some landowners have gone ahead and done what they believed was their clearing only to be told that they still face the possibility of elevated fines.
One told the Resident: “This is such a knee-jerk political decision, which puts all the onus on ordinary people and none on the lunatic decisions to allow so much planting of eucalyptus monocultures”.
Says CM, GNR police have already received thousands of requests for help and clarification via Linha SOS Ambiente (808 200 520), and have not yet started fining people as this will come post-March 15.
But in the meantime, firms that used to charge around 1200 euros for clearing a hectare of land “are now charging three times as much”, says the paper, and “there are people having to hire companies from Spain for this work”.
Questions are also being asked about the ‘news’ of pilot-projects involving “firefighting trees” (click here) which simply don’t seem to have been taken on board in any comprehensive way.
This weekend in Silves, Safe Communities Portugal will be taking part in the Mediterranean Garden Fair and ready to answer people’s questions on this subject, in the company of experts from the forestry institute ICNF.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
